One Year After: A Novel (12 page)

“We settle that later. All captured supplies go into the common store.”

“The hell you say!” the man with the blackened teeth exclaimed.

There was a moment of silent confrontation between George and the apparent group leader sitting in the lounge chair. With a curse, George finally tossed the vest aside and walked out.

Relieved of the Kevlar, John sat back in the padded chair, stretching his shoulders, breathing deeply, trying to judge for himself how badly he was hurt. Every breath hurt, but better that than an exit wound the size of his fist with his heart going with it.

“So where is this bastard?”

It was a woman’s voice, older. He looked back out the doorway at a gray-haired, slightly bent woman in faded jeans and a flannel shirt carrying an old-style medical bag.

She approached John, took out a flashlight, and shined it into his eyes so that he winced, telling him to follow the light, rough, callused hands fingering his head. It hurt like hell as she did so, the light causing him to lose focus for a moment.

She taped his chest, feeling along his sternum so that he winced when she pressed in hard. Sticking a dirty finger into his mouth and then pulling it out and examining it for a moment, she finally wiped the finger on her flannel shirt.

“Don’t see any blood in your spit. You cough any blood up?” she asked.

He said nothing, slowly shaking his head.

“Good. Just a cracked rib, no lung punctured by it. You puke at all?”

“Yes, a bit earlier.”

“Concussion, not too bad—that and a cracked rib or two. That’s all.”

Without further comment, she picked up her medical bag, opened it, pulled out an oversized bottle of aspirin, shook out two, and handed them to John.

“Take these and call me in the morning,” was all she said, and she walked out.

“That’s one helluva medic.” John sighed, and his host laughed.

“Maggie is the best. She pulled two bullets out of me last fall with nothing more than a quick shot of white lightning before digging in.”

Focus was coming back, and John looked over at his host. The man, like so many now, had that ageless look—on the surface maybe in his midthirties but infinitely older inside. His skin was weather beaten, leathery. He was dressed a bit more neatly than the group of several dozen hanging about the fire station—jeans, a combat blouse with the eagle of the famed 101st Airborne draped around his narrow shoulders, left sleeve empty and pinned up at the shoulder, left eye covered with a patch, and jawline twisted and gnarled like the bark of an old oak.

“Name’s Forrest Burnett, once a first sergeant with the 101st.” He pointed at the empty sleeve with his right hand. “Lost that in some shit hole of a valley in Afghanistan about ten years back.” He smiled, pointing up to the eye patch and twisted scars of his face.

“Actually lost the arm first to an IED. Rest of my squad dead. When the bastards came up to check us, oh good Lord, how I wasted them all, but lost the eye and my good looks before I killed the last of them.” He laughed softly. “Not like your war … it’s Colonel, isn’t it?”

“Something like that,” John said cautiously.

Burnett looked to those gathered around. “We got us a special guest here,” Burnett announced loudly so all around him could hear. “A real live colonel. Oh, I know his record. Book-learning-type colonel. Even in the Pentagon, not like one of us grunts they sent out in that last war. Now a hero in these mountains for how he turned back that pagan Posse group.”

“Shit, fifty of us,” one of the group interjected, “would have kicked their stinking asses clear back to Greensboro.”

There was a laughing chorus of agreements.

The leader shot an angry glance back at the man who spoke up. “Keep your damn mouth shut!” he snarled, and the one he spoke to dropped his head and backed up.

John said nothing, for after all, what could he say? In a way, Burnett was right. He had received many an advantage ever since college and his decision to go into the military with the immediate rank of second lieutenant. From the accent, John knew Burnett to be a local, most likely a volunteer out of patriotic fervor or poverty after 9/11, sent back from Afghanistan twisted up in body and mind.

“Got the Silver Star for that, wasting those bastards, and then years of bullshit afterwards. How was your retirement, Colonel?”

John said nothing. Burnett was taking him into the game of who had it worse, and in that case, John would most certainly lose. John would always be the first to admit that, especially in the years just prior to the Day. Retired colonels did get far more perks. A one-armed sergeant with a twisted face and missing an eye might get a lot of sympathy at least and compassion—especially after the crap that had been heaped on the veterans of Vietnam—but in the long run?

“Look, Sergeant. You want to shoot me or hang me, then just do it and get it over with. So let’s cut the crap. It’s your call,” John snapped back, knowing that Burnett had every right to be bitter, and making an appeal for mercy would fall on deaf ears.

Most fell silent, though a few, led by George standing outside the firehouse, offered to help him with his suggestion of a firing squad.

Burnett gazed at him intently, and finally a smile creased his face. “Damn you, Matherson. At least you got some sand in your craw. George, find him a cot; let him sleep off his headache.”

The man who had been his captor sighed, stepped out from the group watching the encounter, and roughly pulled John to his feet.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” George announced to all.

“Just see to him,” Burnett said, “and cuff his ankle to the bed. Bet he got one of those bullshit escape-and-evasion courses, and now thinks he can pull a Rambo and split on us.”

John looked at Burnett.

“I escaped from mine,” Burnett asked. “How’d you do?”

“Got the crap kicked out of me,” John answered honestly.

“Figured.”

“Just one question.”

“Sure, Colonel Matherson.”

“The rest of my unit with me … what happened?”

“Think we killed one, the guy following you.”

John took that in, not trying to show any emotion.
Was Maury wearing a Kevlar vest?

“Friend of yours?” Burnett asked.

“Yeah.”

“And if we killed him?”

“You know what I’ll do if I get out of this.”

Burnett nodded.

“Your Stepp friends started it. Traded us some bad moonshine a month back. Had lead in it. Damn near killed George over there. So we were paying a return visit to burn out their still and pick up a bit of food, and it went bad. Didn’t expect you as a prize, though, Matherson.”

“The Stepp family?”

“We don’t kill civilians unless we got to,” Burnett snapped.

John turned to look at George. “If you killed my friend and I get out of this, it’s personal for me, and you’re a dead man,” he said slowly, forcefully.

The punch to the jaw put John out cold for several more hours.

*   *   *

“You
are one stupid bastard, you know that, Colonel?”

John forced his eyes open. He had actually been awake for at least a half hour or more but had mimicked sleep, trying to gather his thoughts and figure out what to do next. His defiance might have earned him a touch of respect, but the aching jaw from the uppercut was numbing, and he wondered if a couple of teeth had been knocked loose. Unfortunately, the blow hit on the other side of his mouth, so the toothache was still with him.

Opening his eyes wide, he found he could at least focus somewhat. It was Burnett, chair pulled up by the side of John’s cot, and he was holding a steaming mug. The scent all but overwhelmed John; it was real coffee.

He sat up, stifling a groan, and took the cup. He wondered if this was now “good cop” time with Burnett offering a treat that no one in Black Mountain had seen in nearly two years. But he accepted it anyhow, half gulping it down, though it was scalding hot, regretting it a few minutes later when the coffee hit his empty stomach.

“Here, eat this; it will settle your guts.” Burnett held out a slice of fresh-baked bread slathered with—of all things—real butter. It was slightly sour but still heavenly, which John took and wolfed down, trying not to sigh with delight.
God in heaven,
he thought.
Real coffee, bread, and butter, and we all took it for granted our entire lives.

“What in the hell am I going to do with you?” Burnett opened without any preamble. “The way I see it, I got three choices. One, we shoot you or hang you as a warning to any who try to mess with us. You really have quite a name around here, and killing you would be, as the natives of the region once said, a real coup. Two, we make you a slave. You know what most of the tribes and white folks did two hundred and fifty years ago when they had a captive they wanted to keep?”

“Cut their Achilles tendons so they couldn’t run—and if still a problem, castrate them.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“And the third?” John ventured. “Let me go or trade me back.”

“Good thinking, but still not certain on any of the three,” Burnett replied. “No sense asking you what you think. Pride will prevent you from appealing to the third choice; fear definitely the second one; defiance might make you ask for the first—and at the moment, I think a majority of folks with me would lean towards that. George was the one who put that round into your chest, and believe me, he was shooting to kill you. He’d have finished you if not for that nurse who took care of you. I heard Maggie kicked his gun up and told him to bring you in.”

“So why don’t you just finish the job publicly? Will win a lot of prestige points with some.”

Burnett took back the empty coffee mug and plate, setting them on the floor. “Response that I kind of assumed from you, Colonel. You ain’t the whining type. Whether that is really you or just a game you’re playing, it does work to a certain extent. Though the big drawback to shooting or hanging you is it will set off the biggest feud these mountains have seen since the Civil War. Your people won’t rest until a lot of dead have been piled up. So, Colonel, that’s an argument in your favor.”

“Can we cut the
colonel
-and-
sergeant
routine?” John said, and at that moment, he thought of his lost friend Washington, the security guard at the college who had taken a frightened group of kids and whipped them into a potent military force able to defeat the Posse, dying in that fight. Washington had never dropped the
colonel
-and-
sergeant
routine, and it had always rankled John and would for the rest of his life. It haunted him, because between himself and his lost friend, he felt Washington was indeed the better man.

“All right, Mr. Matherson—or is it
Doc
or
Professor
?”

“Cut the shit. Just John. Hell, I walked into your ambush. So what do I call you?”

Burnett leaned back and laughed. “There’s a crazy coot up over the mountains in Tennessee who insists he be called Your Holiness. Down in Haywood County, an ex-preacher is saying he is Christ reborn in this time of troubles. I bet there are a thousand nutcases with a thousand names.”

He smiled, and John could not help but smile as well in reply. The coffee and food had settled down in his stomach, and he was beginning to feel somewhat better. He also sensed that if Burnett was talking like this, the prospect of an unpleasant ending had diminished.

“I actually rather liked the stories I read about that Mongol guy, Genghis, after seeing a movie about him and a weird high school teacher who went over to where the guy lived and kept talking about riding with the Mongols and drinking fermented horse milk. But if I named myself after him, people would think I was into
Star Trek
movies. Thought as well about using Napoleon, but everyone who ever called themselves Napoleon is definitely a nut job.”

“So Forrest then?” John asked.

“Yeah, for the moment, that’s okay with me, but out there, it’s
sir
, if you get my drift.”

“Okay.”

“I assume you want the third alternative—that I let you go or trade you for something.”

“Who wouldn’t? I want to live the same as you.”

“So then, damn you, why do you and others like you keep hunting us?” There was a flash of anger from Burnett as he spoke.

John looked at him quizzically, shook his head, and then regretted the action since the dizziness set back in. “What the hell do you mean?”

“You sent a punitive expedition over Mount Mitchell last fall before the snow set in—killed three of my people in an ambush.”

“Now wait a minute,” John replied, his temper rising up. “You and yours have been harassing us all along the north slope of the mountains ever since the shit hit the fan two years ago. Folks killed, food stolen. What am I supposed to do? Just sit back and let you rob us?”

“Half the time, it was most likely someone else doing that. We picked off a couple of dozen of that Posse gang that fled up this way after you kicked their asses. Whoever is killing each other, do you know how barren it is up here? Over on your side of the mountains, you got good crop and grazing lands. After everything went to hell, you had barriers up on the road, and unless someone was a damn doctor or you took a liking to them—like that hot nurse I heard you married—it was move along and get the hell out of town.”

He had nothing to say for a moment to that. It was mostly true. Makala, though, an “outsider,” had at least been in the town when the EMP hit. But the way Burnett spoke of her as “that hot nurse” ticked him off.

“Insult me, but don’t insult my wife,” John snapped. “She was in the town that day it happened—a nurse from a cardiology unit—and she saved a helluva lot of lives afterwards, me being one of them. So back off on that, Forrest.”

Burnett nodded. “Okay. My apologies.”

That was something about the culture of this region that John always admired coming from New Jersey. Contrary to stereotypes, there were aspects of Southern culture that nearly all observed. One was respect for women, something that too many called sexist but John saw as just basic, decent politeness. Burnett had crossed a line regarding another man’s wife and had immediately pulled back. It raised his opinion of him a few notches.