Fifty Years of Peace (Abrupt Dissent Series) (10 page)

***

“Ten minutes,” Jacob said to the mayor as the jail cell’s door squealed shut.

Richard lifted himself from his cell’s cot slowly, a hesitant smile spreading over his face. Jenny’s grandfather wore a day’s worth of silver stubble and a white cotton shirt that was roughly sewn at the shoulders and collar, likely made of thread from his own farm’s crop. That was the type of man Richard was; one who’d built himself up by his bootstraps so he could lift the whole town after the war tore it down. He was not the kind of man that you’d find in a jail cell.

“You don’t look too bad for an old milkmaid,” the mayor said.

“And you don’t look too bad for a slimy politician,” Richard answered. He thrust his arm through the bars and Mayor Trestle clasped it, then wedged his other arm through and gave his old friend the best embrace he could manage.

“Jim, it was good of you to come,” Richard said. “I’ve about had a lifetime fill of Texas accents.”

The mayor laughed, pulling up a stool to the bars and resting his cane against the wall. He massaged his shin just below his knee, trying to dull the throb of his first full day on the leg.

“Was that from the bombing?” Richard asked.

“It was. Five dead was bad enough and now…well, you know what’s happening.”

“I do.” Jenny’s grandfather sat down on his bunk. The mayor could see how tense he was by the way he gripped the thin mattress underneath him.

“Why did Jenny run Richard? What does she know?”

The rancher’s eyes narrowed. He sat back and crossed his arms.

“Is this the mayor who I’ve known since he was a boy that’s asking, or the duly elected representative of New Louisville, Kentucky, reporting to Assemblyman Linden Arnold?”

“This is one pre-war to another right now.”

Jenny’s grandfather turned his head, studying the gray cinderblock walls.

“I’m sorry Jim. I can’t tell you anything that might put that girl in danger.”

Mayor Trestle smoothed his beard. His leg had died down to a dull ache, letting him think a little more. He needed to try a different tactic. Richard wouldn’t trust anyone right now, and the mayor didn’t blame him.

“You know when I was clerking for old man Kenilworth in his last term as mayor there were investigations about you; failure to turn over pre-war technology, if I remember correctly.”

Something unreadable flickered across Richard’s face.

“I invited Kenilworth out to search my property and he didn’t find anything. Your friends from Texas searched everything, cut open every mattress and seat cushion in my house, and also didn’t find anything. Do you really want to try a third time?”

“Richard you old galoot, do you know what happened to that investigation? Kenilworth died, and I buried it because I know who you are. You’re the man that organized the National Guard defections, and kept a lot of us fed around here. I’m not here because you pissed off the New States Congress. I’m here because I need to know what’s happening to our town. Why am I up to my eyeballs in an army from Texas? Why is Arnold here in the first place? And why is someone trying to kill him? Now I know you, and I know your granddaughter. The three of us have had occasion to converse many a long night, and I know she’s a smart girl. She was raised by a smart man, and I think you know more than you’re letting on. But I can’t help my citizens if they don’t let me.”

The rancher studied him, keeping his face expressionless. The mayor knew he was being reevaluated, all those years of stopping over at the farm now called into question. Had he simply been keeping tabs on a known enemy of the state?

“Richard, they’ve got armed search parties combing the hills looking for Jenny. They’ve got some kind of sniper with pre-war tech out after her. If she tries to run again, they’ll shoot her Richard, and I can’t stop them. These men are dangerous. I’m not asking you to give me anything incriminating. I just need a little help from you to get ahead of them.”

Richard glanced toward the door that led to the police station.

“Jenny told me that Assemblyman Arnold drives an RV,” he said. “Got a lot of antennas up there, probably had a radio once.”

“Of course it did. What does that have to do with…”

The jail door banged open behind him.

“They’re coming,” Jacob hissed. “You have to go.”

The mayor nodded and stood.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this Richard.”

“I don’t want the bottom Jim. I want my girl back safe!”

***

Mayor Trestle stood, grabbing his crutch for balance, and limped out past Jacob into the police station. It was quiet at night, just a small lamp lit at the desk Jacob had made his own.

“Mayor Trestle?” the boy said.

The mayor turned. He knew the look on his face wasn’t pleasant and the boy shied from him.

“I wanted to…” Jacob started, “I mean what I’d like to ask is…”

“Well Mr. Mayor,” a voice boomed from the station’s doorway.

He turned and saw Linden squeezing himself inside the sheriff’s office, followed by two more of his Texans. One wore a khaki jacket with the New State’s seal on each shoulder and a captain’s insignia on his collar.

“Linden, how do you do?”

“Oh fine, fine Mr. Mayor. I trust that Jake here has been hospitable.”

“As much as can be. I was hoping to speak to Richard, if you don’t mind.”

“We’re about to have a chat with him ourselves, but right now I’m afraid we need to ask for some privacy.”

“Is that because there are certain things you’d prefer I didn’t know Assemblyman? Like why there’s an army in my town?”

The air tightened in the room. The soldier behind Linden lowered his hand toward his pistol holster. Mayor Trestle shouldn’t have said that, but he was upset at Richard’s stubbornness and his leg was hurting. It was time to poke this bear himself.

“Mr. Mayor, you’ve obviously been under a lot of strain these past two days,” Linden said. “Go home and get some rest. I’ll be happy to have a full discussion with you in the morning.”

With that, the smirking captain pushed passed him into the jail, and Linden followed. Jacob closed the door behind them, and the mayor stared at their heads through the security glass for a long moment. Then he rushed out into the evening, excited. Maybe the assemblyman wasn’t as good at keeping his secrets as he thought, and maybe Richard wasn’t as stubborn.

The moonlight glistened over the town as the mayor crutched along the road until he reached his old house at the north end of town. It was the same large brick house that he’d grown up in, better kept when his wife had been alive. Now he cursed himself for his sloppiness as he drug his bad leg up the stairs and over piles of boxes. He finally reached the third story, sneezing in the dust, and reached for the attic’s pull chain. The stairway descended, and he hopped up each narrow step until he could feel around the darkness for what he was looking for.

After a moment of searching, he found the dusty plastic box and unopened package of batteries. He held onto them both, balancing as carefully as he could, and took each step back down with both feet. His wounded leg protested, but he didn’t have much choice. Reaching the floor, he hurried to the window at the end of the hall where he’d have some light. He unsealed the batteries, then opened the hatch on the back of the old radio and slotted them inside. For a moment, nothing happened after he pressed the power button. Then the radio’s dirty face lit with an orange glow.

I know you’re out there somewhere Linden
, he thought as he searched the dial,
and I’m going to find out exactly what you’re up to
.

The next morning, exhausted from his night shift, Jacob went to check on Richard one last time before the Texans arrived for their watch. Jenny’s grandfather was staring out the small window in his cell, watching the sunrise. The assemblyman had left early in the morning, and Richard likely hadn’t slept at all.

“Mr. Williams?” Jacob asked. He didn’t know if Richard would answer, didn’t really know what he wanted to ask. But more and more, he felt like something needed to be said and that he was the only one who could do it.

“What is it Jake?”

“Are you…are you ok?”

Richard faced Jacob. Bags hung under his eyes and he seemed sad. It hurt Jacob to watch what was happening to a man he’d respected. When he’d stopped by the ranch for Jenny’s tutoring, Richard had seemed so massively good-hearted. Why wasn’t he cooperating?

“I’ve seen a lot worse son, but thank you for asking. Now Jacob, I’ve got a question for you. What did Linden tell you that put you on his side instead of your own neighbors?”

“It’s not like that,” Jacob said. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then what is it?”

Jacob stood there thinking, but before he could reply, the Texans entered. When he left the station, he drug his feet to Mack Henney’s diner on the corner of Peace Avenue and found the mayor sitting with some policemen and a few store clerks. He left to walk the streets alone, and try to calm his mind. He wasn’t turning on anyone, he was trying to help; why couldn’t they see that?

***

Jenny arrived with Doc Stinson, just as dawn broke over the mountains. Seeing how pale and unresponsive George’s mother was, the doctor went right to work in spite of his exhaustion. He set George to boiling water as he laid out a set of shining metal instruments on a clean cloth. When the water was ready, he bathed Lenora’s stomach, then looked up.

“I’m sorry,” he said to George and Aiden’s concerned faces, “but this is going to hurt her.”

Jenny steeled herself and watched as the doctor cut into Lenora’s abdomen, fascinated by his skill. The doctor didn’t waste a moment, his movements pre-planned and calmly executed. He asked each of them to help as the surgery progressed. George held a mirror to reflect the sunlight onto Lenora’s stomach. Jenny used a squeeze bulb to suck blood from the wound while Aiden held clamps out of the way as the doctor searched for the bullet. After he’d found it and thrown it aside, Doc Stinson began the process of repairing the bullet’s damage, using foot after foot of thread to stitch Lenora’s insides back together.

George tried not to look at the wound, and every time Lenora moaned, he shot a frightened look at his father. Aiden stayed focused on his wife, sponging off her forehead or smoothing her hair when he could, helping the doctor as much as possible with his one good arm.

“Hang on Lenora,” he whispered. “Just hang on.”

Finally, as the sun grew hot and sweat soaked Doc Stinson’s apron, the doctor finished his last stitch and leaned back on his heels.

“Bring the water,” he said.

George lifted the pot from where he’d nestled it against the hot rocks and brought it to his mother’s side. Then he dipped a rag and cleaned the last of the blood from his mother’s stitches.

“Now it’s up to her,” the doctor said. He stood, stretched his back, and washed his hands with soap he’d brought in his bag. Then he turned to Aiden.

“It’s time to look at that shoulder,” he said.

Aiden’s surgery went much quicker. The doctor gave Aiden a piece of bark to bite into and a log to grip with his other hand. The bullet that hit Aiden’s collarbone hadn’t done major damage. Doc Stinson removed the slug, stitched the incision, then fashioned Aiden a sling out of gauze, and was finished.

“It’s going to hurt for a while, but the bone should knit well enough. Your pitching career might be over though.” Jenny heard both men laugh as she found a seat against a tree trunk where she could hold Lenora’s hand. A tattoo of what looked like a coastline snaked up George’s mother’s arm. Jenny had never seen anything like it, and she nodded off wondering at its significance.

When she awoke, she found George’s hand had slipped into her other palm. An electric feeling flowed through her. She didn’t remember him settling next to her, but something about it felt right. She watched him as he rested his eyes, and could see that George had used some of the extra water to clean up a little as the mud and dirt that once covered his face was gone, revealing smooth, lightly tanned skin. She had noticed he was handsome before, but was amazed at the difference a little water made.

Jenny thought about everything George and his family had been through, and marveled at how strong people could be. She wished that she could be strong, but the truth was she worried for her grandfather, the only parent she’d ever known.
He could be gone in an instant, and then what would happen to her?

Jenny glanced down at Lenora to see her eyes had cracked open. Color filled her cheeks for the first time and she was smiling.

“I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to my son’s new girlfriend,” she said.

Jenny blushed and let out a sheepish smile, then quickly pulled her hand from George’s grip.

Lenora let out a soft laugh and smiled as Doc Stinson made his way over to check on her.

***

The rich aroma of chicken broth filled the air. George used a bouillon cube from his pack and added a little of the barley Jenny had to create the meager soup for his mother. Lenora drank, nodded her thanks, and then turned her eyes to her husband.

“And how are you?” she said.

“I’ll be fine sweetheart. Just don’t make me do jumping jacks.”

“You two were about as lucky as could be,” Doc Stinson said. He’d cleaned his instruments and repacked his bag, and now knelt in front of Lenora to check her bandage. “George told me it was a sniper that got you. Looks like you both took lucky shots, if there is such a thing.”

Aiden turned to his son.

“We need to have a talk about what you tell people George.”

“It’s all right, it’s all right,” the doctor said, “I could have figured it out myself from the slugs.”

“We owe you both a debt that we can’t repay,” Lenora said.

“Well,” Doc Stinson nodded at Jenny, “if not for this little lady I wouldn’t be here at all.”

Jenny swelled with pride. With everything that was happening to her grandfather and the town, knowing that she’d been able to help George and his family gave her great comfort.

“I’m…” Jenny started. “I’m just glad I could help.”

“There is one thing that I’d like to ask both of you though,” the doctor said.

“Of course,” Aiden answered.

“If I understood George right, you were traveling at night, which means that the sniper would have hit you in the dark and from at least a couple hundred yards…”

Jenny could see George’s parents exchanging glances. They were clearly nervous at how much this man they just met already knew, and she understood why; it would reveal more and more of why they were here.

“You can trust him,” she said. “My grandfather did.”

“Well…Well thank you Jenny,” Doc Stinson said, “what I was getting at is that a shot like that requires night vision. That means batteries, goggles, military grade hardware. Now as I understand it, there hasn’t been anything like that in the New States since the war. So, does someone want to set me straight on what’s happening to my town?”

George’s father stood and looked out over the mountains toward the East. A few clouds hung in the sky like gauzed streamers, curling away from him.

“I suppose you’ve all got a right to know what’s happening,” Aiden started. “Jenny, this is going to be more of a shock to you than it is to anyone else, but we even kept a lot of this from you as well George, just in case…in case anything happened. The technology that your grandfather showed you Jenny, there’s much more of it out there, and it’s still in use. In the United States, we’ve been rebuilding ever since the war ended. The devices we can make are still quite crude, but combined with pre-war technology, our computers and our capabilities are coming along.”

“So can you connect with each other?” Jenny asked. “Can you read things from other machines?”

“Yes, and what’s more, is we’ve even heard things from other countries. If you know how to do it, you can intercept signals from the other devices. We’ve always known the New States’ government still used technology even though they told you they didn’t, but we never knew why they kept it a secret. But…but now we know…”

Jenny’s eyes got large, “Know what?”

“The reason they are keeping the technology a secret, and keeping it out of the hands of the people, is to conceal the truth about what’s really going on across the country. You see, the New States’ government hasn’t been rebuilding the New States at all. All of the increased quotas and stories of helping the northern states are just lies.”

“But why?” she asked.

“Well, for a long time we weren’t entirely sure, but then we were able to intercept some important conversations with the president involving various assemblymen and even other countries. From what we’ve heard, it sounds like there are other countries going through the same starvation problems we went through so many years ago. Farmers in other countries used to depend on a lot of agricultural equipment manufactured in the U.S. At first this wasn’t a big problem, but as the farm equipment began to fail over time and populations hit an all-time high, there simply wasn’t enough food for all the people.”

“But what does this have to do with us?” Doc Stinson insisted.

“You know the increased quotas Assemblyman Arnold has proposed for the northern states? Those harvest trains were sent in the opposite direction. They are boarding ships and being sent to other countries in exchange for money, technology, and weapons, leaving people within the New States to suffer and starve.”

The group went silent, each person soaking in what they had just heard.

Finally, Doc Stinson asked, “So why bomb Assemblyman Arnold? Why kill and endanger innocent people?”

“Our mission was simply to open people’s eyes, and to help them in any way we can. I know our methods seem unethical and there were some unwanted casualties, but the bombing definitely succeeded in showing the people there perfect world wasn’t as perfect as they thought.”

“But why now? If this has been going on for a long time, why wait so long to tell the people? And how does this even concern you? It’s not like the harvests were supposed to go to you…I can’t imagine you guys are risking a war with the New States just out of the kindness of your hearts. ” Doc Stinson replied.

“You’re right Doc. We recently found that President Hickock is doing all of this to grow, strengthen, and fuel his army so that he can attack the United States. We’re not sure of his motive, but can only guess it is to satisfy his greed with our land and resources. We are running out of time. Unless we can get the people of the New States to join us in rebellion, we don’t think our army will stand a chance. ”

“But we’re nothing but peasants,” Doc Stinson said. “Even if you were successful in forming some sort of a rebellion, we are nothing but farmers and merchants, not trained soldiers.”

“I know, but it’s our only shot. We know the New States army has more weaponry and technology, and at the moment, more soldiers, but if we could tip the scale and outnumber them, it might just give us a fighting chance. As we speak, there are hundreds of operatives like us coming into the New States. We’re here to spread the truth, because once the people know what we know, we know they’ll join our side.”

The Doctor sat back, amazed.

“People need to know,” Jenny said to him.