Indivisible (Overlooked by Liberty) (8 page)

      
"No.  I didn't know."

      
Max concluded, "They already know The Wizard is somewhere in Vermont."  Consoling Helen he continued, "The Wizard left already; I don't think much harm has been done."

      
Max was still concerned, "But Bradley knows that I've done a lot of work with electronics; it's too much of a coincidence.  The Feds will check me out.  I'll try to send a message through the link to Vermont tomorrow, then go back to Colebrook and lay low for a while."  Speaking to Butch, "You boys will have to take Helen back to her house.  Send Thad back if you notice unusual traffic through the valley."  Butch nodded.

      
"I'm so sorry!"  Tears ran down Helen's face.  "I'm so stupid."

      
Max held her by the shoulders.  "Listen, little sister, you have to go back.  You have to act like nothing happened--and if Bradley asks you anything, give him info that sounds good but is totally false.  Then they won't know what to believe."

      
By now Thad had awakened and stumbled over to the group.  He put his arms around Helen's neck; the hug from his small slender body surprised and comforted her.

      
"Don't worry, boss," Butch declared all-knowingly.  "Me and Thad won't let nothing happen to your sister."

      
Helen had breakfast ready for Bradley when he walked into the kitchen.  He put his arms around her waist as she flipped an egg over in the skillet.  "I've got to give a talk to a co-op in St. Johnsbury this morning, but I'd like us to spend the rest of the day together."  He nibbled her ear.

      
"I'd like that, too.  I'll bake your favorite pie for dinner," said Helen as she glared coldly at the wall behind the stove.  "Be sure to drink the fresh-squeezed orange juice on the table over there.  It will cure what ails you."  Helen had no intention of baking a pie that day; her orange juice would take care of that.  It would make him violently sick in about an hour.

Chapter 5

Colebrook, New Hampshire (Evening of November 10)

      
Helen woke from her dream and sat up in bed.  The pounding on the kitchen door at last awakened her; she rolled over and turned on her lamp to look at her watch.  "Good Lord, it's one in the morning."  She put on her slippers and robe, "This had better be good!"

      
Thad and Tater waited at the door, peering away from the house into darkness.  He wiped his nose with his sleeve.  A snap in the brush made him jerk back to that direction.  Tater perked her ears and flared her teeth.

      
The porch light came on.  "What are you doing here?"

      
Thad strained, trying to speak.

      
"Well, what is it?"  She could see from the boy's panicked look, something was wrong.  Tater continued staring out into blackness and took several steps toward the woods, ready to strike.  "Is it Max?"

      
"Thad shook his head no."

      
"The Feds?"

      
He shook his head yes and opened the screen door.  Grabbing her robe, he began tugging.

      
"Are they coming?"

      
He shook his head affirming it and drew her out the door.

      
"No.  I have to get some things."  Helen ran in and grabbed pants, shirt, and boots, then ran to Barry's room and snatched the picture of mother and son at Cascade Falls.  She paused a moment--and found Thad tugging on her robe again.  Seconds later, the two were out the back door with Tater in pursuit.

       
When they finally dared to stop and turn around, they could see flashlight beams darting about the house from their vantage point in the thick pines up the hill.  Holding her bunched clothes under an arm, Helen watched the enemy ransack the only home she had ever known, in their search for her.  Tater cocked her head, her eyes danced, following the flashlight beams below.  In early December, snows had melted, but the bitter, damp air quickly chilled the motionless trio.  Thad grasped Helen's hand and led her fumbling through the darkness.  Tater paused for a moment to watch their home defiled by strangers, unable to protest.

      
The Rousell hideout was a large wooden teepee made of cedar logs with mounded dirt; moss and ferns covered the structure.  An opening at the top allowed smoke to escape from a stacked-stone firebox inside.  The rocks radiated warmth from an earlier burn; red coals remained.  Thad gestured to Helen to sit on one of the mattresses as he went about feeding the coals with kindling stacked around the walls of the structure.

      
Helen sat shivering and hapless, hugging the only things she had left in the world.  She watched the boy purposefully go about his chores. 
There is no expression of fear in this child's face,
she concluded.  She couldn't help but wonder what they went through at the Dixville Massacre.  After Thad's mute effort to warn her at the house, she knew the tragedy had had a traumatic impact on him.  He noticed her watching him and looked back.

      
"Whee te whee teeeeah," Butch's secret whistle pierced the air.

      
Thad responded with the same shrill pitch.  Moments later Butch flipped up the tarp and paraded in.  Tater bound through the door behind him, tail wagging.  She had gone back to check on Butch after escorting the two to safety.  She lapped Helen's face.

      
Helen dropped her clothes and held the dog away.  "Please Tater, give me some space."  To Tater, this was all an adventure.

      
"We kicked their ass, Thad," Butch boasted. "I flattened every tire on their cars with my Scout knife while they were up at the house."  He looked over to Helen.  "I see you rescued Barry's mom.  That's rugged, Thad.  Real rugged."  He said to Helen, "Me and Thad take care of our own, you know," Butch noticed she was shivering; he went over to a trunk, opened it, and pulled out a jacket to put around her.  "We won't let the Feds get ya.  You're safe here.  Only Thad, Barry, Tater, and me know about this place--and now you, of course.  Not even Max knows about it."

      
Helen looked at the jacket and noticed it was Barry's.  Butch saw her expression.  "That's Barry's.  He still has stuff here.  We started this place in the spring.  It sure came in handy.  It sure did."

      
Helen didn't say a thing--just sat glumly and watched the fire regain life from the added twigs.  It smoldered and popped--eventually, spewing out flames, adding new life to nearly dead embers.  Ashen smoke strayed side to side, eventually wading to the peak and out the opening at the top of the hideout.  A scent of burned cherry lingered from the smoke trail.  She watched--and listened to Butch ramble.

      
"And we've got food.  Thad, get Ms. Conrad some food."

      
"No, thanks, really."

      
"No," continued Butch.  "We got plenty."  Thad handed a pack of cookies to his brother; he opened it and handed them to Helen.  "We got enough to hold out three weeks and that's not counting food we could get hunting.  Tater's a tracker, you know.  If you get lost in the woods we could find you with her.  She's got a real good nose.  The best nose on a dog I ever seen.  The Feds are too stupid to use dogs.  But if they did we have trip lines and snares all over the place; the snares would catch a dog."

       
Helen opened the pack and pulled a cookie out, smelling it before biting into it.  "Do the snares catch Tater?"

      
"Caught her once, then she learned.  Most dogs wouldn't learn like her.  Tater's smarter than most dogs.  We hooked up a harness on her; me, Barry, and Thad had her help us drag logs up here for the hideout.  Oh, she's still your dog.  We just exercise her.  Barry would want that.  Tater has taken a real liking to Thad though."

      
Tater raised her eyes at the mention of her name.  She lay stretched out on her own padded bed next to the warm rocks that circled the fire, poised and waiting to absorb any heat that oozed between the gaps in the stone.  The dog lay her head on the fluffy cushion with eyes open and recharged from the activity of the evening.  Helen watched the animal and realized this was a frequent experience for Tater.  It explained why the dog had stayed out all night since the Rousell brothers started borrowing her.  "Doesn't your mother say anything about you boys running around all the time.  I don't mean to seem ungrateful, but shouldn't you be home?"

      
"It's okay with Mom as long as we don't hurt anyone.  That's what she says, 'As long as you don't hurt anyone'."

      
"Butch, does your mother know where you are, and some of the things you two do?"

      
"Mom drinks a little.  And she goes to bed early if her boyfriend isn't staying over; if he is, they like it when we go out.  Sometimes we stay here.  Sometimes we stay at Max's deer camp.  Me and Thad are rugged.  We're the last of Pack 220.  We're not afraid of nothing.  If me and Thad come across another robot gun and see the red lights come on, we know exactly what to do.  We'd shoot out the sensors.  It's got to have sensors to see the motion and heat.  And we carry flares too.  We can light 'em and throw 'em out as decoys.  We're ready, Ms. Conrad.  A Scout's always prepared."  Thad shook his head, agreeing with his brother.

      
"There's nothing wrong with being afraid, but you boys need a normal life.  You shouldn't be sitting around planning how to attack the Feds."

      
"We used to do a lot of stuff in Scoutin' but we're not members anymore.  I can never be an Eagle Scout unless there's an Akela.  So we're starting our own secret pack, Ghost Pack 220.  We're rebuilding the troop.  Gettin' more kids every day."

      
"So people join every day, huh?"  Helen treated everything Butch said with suspicion.  He had a way of talking as though all-knowing.

      
"Yep.  Every day."  Butch began telling her about Dixville Notch: how Mr. Ronolou had had him and Thad drop to the rear of the troop and help as his assistant; how Mr. Ronolou jumped in front of the bullets while he yanked them down behind a rock when the shooting started.  "I was going to go get Barry but Mr. Ronolou wouldn't let me go.  The Akela said I couldn't.  A Scout always obeys the Akela, ya know.  Mr. Ronolou got up and took twelve hits to draw the robot gun away for me and Thad so we could escape.  That's rugged."  Butch shook his head agreeing with himself.  "When the Feds arrived in the copter and were checking out the scene, a Black guy looked right into our hiding spot, but for some reason he didn't tell on us.  Then after they flew off, we jumped out of the dirt and started making a stretcher for Barry.  They patched him up, ya know, but then left him there to die."

      
"I know."  Helen knew Butch exaggerated about Mr. Ronolou taking twelve bullets, but she wanted to hear more.

      
"Thad was the last person Barry talked to."  The glow of the fire flickered across the boy's face as he spun his tale--his narration compelling.  "Barry told Thad he loved ya."

      
The phrase jerked tears from Helen's eyes.  She winced and looked to Thad who nodded.  "Butch Rousell, you'd better not be feeding me another cock-and-bull story!"

      
"No, Ma'am.  Cross my heart and hope to die.  Honest to God.  Right, Thad?"  Thad bobbed his head earnestly.  "Anyway, that was the last time my brother said anything.  I think he's got the ghost."

      
"The ghost?" Helen knew he was making things up now.  They looked at Thad sitting across the fire.

      
"The ghost," Butch confirmed.  "Like on the old
Star Trek
movie where Spock transferred his soul into Doctor McCoy.  I think they're sharing the same body."  Butch was careful not to word this part of the story as fact.  He didn't want to offend.

      
"Well, how big is your Ghost Pack?"  Helen jumped back to a less sensitive topic.  Tater rested by the warm rocks surrounding the fire.  The heat converted their damp, dreary surroundings into a cozy cocoon, forcing the cold to retreat out the very gaps it had entered.  It was a camp-out, the dark cedar timbers replaced a black forest; the blazing fire leaped and snapped.

      
"You want to join?"

      
"What?"  The boy's question startled Helen out of a daze.

      
"The Ghost Pack?  Ya know, be a member?" asked Butch.

      
She shrugged, "What do I have to do?"

      
"You already did the first part.  You heard the story about the massacre at Dixville Notch.  Next, you have to cut your thumb."  Helen cringed.  Butch unloaded his jacket pockets looking for his pocketknife.  A small, 22 revolver was among the items that came out.

      
"Is that thing real?" asked Helen.