Tumultus (4 page)

Cooper left Mac with instructions on how to get to his ranch, with the one demand that they walk the nearly ten miles there.  The next day, Reese, Dublin, Mac, and Bear gathered outside the Juneau hotel they had been staying at the last few days.  It was an unusually warm Alaska morning considering November was just a few weeks away. 

Bear’s wife Clancy was outside the hotel entrance as well, along with their two children.  So too was Lucille Wagner, Mac’s longtime companion from their years in Dominatus.  The others were already aware of Lucille’s repeated refusal to allow Mac to make the journey across the Canadian provinces to the far off outpost of Churchill, Manitoba.  That refusal continued to express itself to Mac as he stood silently with his arms folded across his chest listening to Lucille’s increasingly agitated tone.

“Stupid old man is what you are, Mackenzie Walker.  Stubborn and stupid.  Going off to get yourself killed.  Trying to prove yourself all over again?  Is that it?  You don’t need to do this stuff anymore, Mac.  Those days are over.  You need to stay right here and help out where you’re needed, not go on some wild, idiotic trip to God knows where.  Not at your age.  Not…not with me here.  Leaving me behind to do what, Mac?  Sit around and worry?  We survived Dominatus together.  Can’t we just enjoy whatever time we have left with each other?”

Mac glanced down for a moment before his eyes returned Lucille’s hopeful gaze.  While her words were angry, her eyes held fear – fear for the safety of the man she had come to love very much.  Lucille’s long, grey-streaked hair was held back by a simple red ribbon, and her lean face, while deeply lined around the eyes and mouth, still held the simple beauty she had admired with just a hint of pride decades earlier.

The two had known each other for nearly twenty years, and it was Lucille, as much as anyone, who had reminded Mac of his own humanity and dignity after years spent killing for the United States government, the same government that later attempted to silence him within the walls of a federal prison following his killing of a man in self-defense.

“Lucille, you know me better than anyone.  So that said, you know I can’t turn my back on this mission.  These people need me.  As old and tired as I am, if I’m needed, then that’s where I’m gonna go.  That’s the man you know.  That’s the man I am.  I can’t change that, woman…can’t be something I’m not.  I had no plans to grow old gracefully, and I’ll be damned if I start now.”

Reese spotted Bear trying not to smile, the former NFL player’s own wife Clancy giving him the same disapproving look as Lucille was giving Mac.

Lucille’s gaze went from Mac to Dublin, hoping she would offer some support in keeping Mac from leaving the newfound and relative safety of Alaska for the unknown and likely far more dangerous lands beyond, where the reach of the New United Nations remained a daily and deadly threat to its enemies.

“Dublin, you know what it is to lose someone you love.  Your grandfather…we all miss him.  Please tell Mac he’s not needed.  Tell him to stay here with me.  Where he belongs.”

Dublin looked at Mac, and then back to Lucille, her dark eyes already indicating to the older woman she would not offer her what she hoped to hear.

“Lucille, if there’s one thing I know about Mac, it’s that he is and has always been his own man.  It’s a big part of why we admire him so much.  I’ll support him in whatever he chooses.  Whether he stays or goes.  And the fact is, we can always use his help.  There’s not another person I would want fighting more on my side than Mac Walker.”

Lucille glared back at Dublin, her mouth curling into a snarl.

“Stupid girl!  You think you have all your life ahead of you.  You and Reese, you think it can’t be taken away like that?  Going on this trip of yours, it’s just stupid.  Dangerous and stupid.  All of you.  All of you should know better.  What about you Bear?  You have a wife.  Kids.  Why in the hell are you going?”

Bear had his massive right arm around the shoulder of Clancy, while his left hand was being held by both his children.

“Lucille, those are exactly the reasons I’m going.  We ain’t safe here.  You know that.  It’ll be sooner not later when the drones are back.  The New United Nations officers – you really think they’ll just leave us all alone up here.  For how long?  A few more months?  A year?  Maybe a few years at most?  And what then?  What if that’s when they take my wife and my kids?  What if I had a chance to stop all that?  To fight back.  To protect my family’s future.  I know you’re afraid for Mac, Lucille.  You should be.  We should all be afraid for every one of us.  So I’m doing what I always do.  Putting my head down and smashing across the line.  I’m going for the win.  I want to stop the New United Nations for good, and if there’s some weapon out there that can do that, then I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.”

“Are you willing to die, Bear?  That’s what will happen.  You will go out there and die and leave your wife and kids here, all alone.”

It was Clancy and not her husband who responded to Lucille’s words, her pretty, girl-next-door features flashing a warning that Lucille had gone too far.

“That’s enough, Lucille.  You’re scaring my kids.  And we won’t be alone.  We are all in this thing together.  All of us.  You included.”

Lucille’s face was overcome with guilt as she saw Bear and Clancy’s children beginning to cry.  This in turn led to Lucille’s own tears running down her cheeks.

Mac’s eyes looked to the sunlit sky above them.

“Awww, hell.  C’mon now, Lucille, none of that.  I’m gonna be fine.  You know me…toughest son-of-a-bitch you ever met.  That’s what you call me.  And that’s what I am.  I can still throw down when the need is there.  Bear’s right, they’ll be coming back.  And there won’t be any mercy for any of us when they do.  We thought they came at us hard back in Dominatus – this time it’ll be worse.  A whole lot more of us will be dead.  There could be a hundred drones flying over our heads any day now.  We don’t have the defenses to stop that kind of attack.  Not yet.  My gut tells me we won’t, either.  Not before it’s too late.  So honey, I got to do this.  I got to try.  It’s all I know how to do.  It’s….it’s what I need to do.”

Lucille wiped yet more tears from her face as she looked into the face of Mac.

“I still say you’re a stubborn old fool, Mackenzie Walker.”

Mac smiled, and shrugged his shoulders.

“You won’t get an argument from me on that one, Lucille.  Can’t believe you’ve put up with me for this long.”

Lucille put her arms around Mac and squeezed him tightly, kissing his neck before whispering into his left ear.

“I’m going to wait right here for you, Mac.  You come back to me.  Please…do what you say you have to do, and then you come back to me.  Promise?”

“Mac gently took Lucille’s face into his hands and kissed her lips.

“I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you and me ain’t done with each other just yet.”

Mac felt a pang of guilt as he said the words, knowing it would be very difficult to prove them right to Lucille.

Bear took both of his children into his arms and hugged them, his eyes shut tight as he did so. He then stood and silently held Clancy, whose body shook with her own sobs.  Dublin took Reese’s right hand and squeezed it tightly, grateful in knowing she would be sharing this journey with the man she had come to call her friend and lover.

Finally, the group of four former residents of Dominatus began walking down the road that led to the eastern outskirts of Juneau and eventually led to the Wyse farm.  Bear looked back several times to wave goodbye.  Mac did not – he looked straight ahead, his jaw set with determination.

The journey to the priest and the hopeful weapon of the New United Nations’ destruction had begun.

IV.

It took much of the day for the four to reach the beginning of the long drive that marked the entrance to Cooper Wyse’s property.  A single hand made sign nailed to the side of a fence post that simply read
WYSE
was the only welcome they received.

The hours of walking had taken a toll on Mac, though he had said nothing in complaint, he was unable to mask his increasingly labored breathing, and as morning turned to afternoon, his steps grew noticeably slower.  He stopped in front of the sign and placed both of his arms over the top rail of the fence, leaning on it for support.

“I still don’t know why in the hell he made us walk all the way out here.  Got my ass dragging, that’s for damn sure.”

Bear stood next to Mac and clapped him on the shoulder.

“For what it’s worth, I’m more than a little tired myself, Mac.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say this Cooper was testing us to make sure we were up for the trip.”

Dublin was staring down the long narrow drive, a smile spreading across her face.

“This is a beautiful place Reese.  The trees, grasses – it all looks and smells so amazing.”

Reese, who had spent most of his life in more urban areas, found the vast open space of the Wyse ranch somewhat overwhelming.

“A nice place to visit Dublin, but I don’t know if I would want to live way out here.  It seems so…solitary.”

Dublin shook her head at Reese.

“City boy.”

Mac interrupted the conversation by walking past both of them as he made his way down the drive with a slight limp, covering his mouth as he coughed several times.

“Let’s go.  Want to get to Coop before we run out of daylight.”

The fenced road to the Wyse ranch house was nearly a mile long.  Halfway to the house a group of five horses running in the vast fenced field stopped and came up to them, the largest of the horses looking at them cautiously.  They were beautiful animals – powerful and graceful, with clear intelligent eyes that seemed to question who these unknown visitors were who now walked the property that was their home.

Finally the ranch house came into view, a long single story structure with a covered porch that ran the length of the front of the home.  On that porch could be seen Cooper Wyse, occupying what appeared to be a handmade rocking chair, the brim of his cowboy hat tilted downward just above his green eyes as he sat drinking from a simple white coffee cup.  To Cooper’s right sat a large, red-colored dog, whose own brown eyes watched the approach of the arriving four with a careful intensity.  Cooper’s right hand reached out to scratch the dog’s ear as a way of letting it know all was well.

As the four guests stood directly in front of the covered porch, Cooper stood up and tipped his hat in greeting.

“Hope the walk didn’t prove too much trouble for you.  Since we’re not so far from the border between Alaska and the Canadian province out here, there’s regular drone surveillance just over the hills there.  Anything mechanical sets them off, and I figure it would be best if we start this trip off sight unseen if possible.”

Reese was the first to take a step onto the porch.

“Bear said he figured you were testing us to see if we could handle the trip.”

Cooper gave a small smile and the slightest of shrugs.

“I won’t say that wasn’t a possibility.  So tell me, you all up for the trip?”

Now Mac also stepped onto the first step of the porch.

“I’m getting tired of people asking me that question.  Yeah, we’re up for the damn trip.  We’re riding horses, right?”

Cooper nodded.

“That’s right, for some of the trip anyways.  You ever sit in a saddle for any length of time, Mr. Walker?  Or you, Mr. Neeson?  Bear?  Dublin?”

Bear snorted, waiving a dismissive hand in Cooper’s direction.

“I played football for a living.  Don’t think sitting myself on top of a horse is gonna be any harder than that.  No disrespect, but seems to me the horse is doing most the work.”

Cooper lightly scratched the unshaven stubble on his left cheek as a knowing smile revealed itself to Bear.