STEADFAST Book Three: America's Last Days (The Steadfast Series 3) Page 5

  "People of Mastover!" a voice boomed into the square. Eric knew the voice. It was Hank Worcester! What was he doing here? "People of Mastover! When will the killing stop? Will you execute your own sons and daughters next? All because of Commander Morris? No more! No more! No more!"

  The chant seemed to shake the ground, echoing off the structures surrounding the courtyard. The buildings around the courthouse came alive. Every window, every roof, was filled with people. Their clothing was drab and they were mostly women and children, but they were still a startling presence. Eric watched the soldiers near Morris stagger and try to organize themselves to aim their rifles at their elevated enemy. Gretchen was there, too. And Andy, who whistled a shrill whistle and waved at Eric. Some of the women held rifles, but most of them and the children held wooden spears, all aimed at the soldiers.

  The people of River Camp had come for Eric!

  "What is this, Judge?" Commander Morris bellowed over the chant. The chant slowly died away for the people to hear the words of the men. "This is what you call a smashed resistance?"

  Again, the judge's eyes met Eric's. The old man's gaze was filled with defeat. He'd been moments away from making the resistance a thing of the past—at least as far as the town's military guest was concerned. But now, it was obvious the ruse was up, and the judge had been lying. The resistance was apparently alive and well, and it threatened the Lib-Org commander himself.

  "Untie Eric Radner!" Hank shouted. He stood on the tallest building facing Eric. "Let him walk, Judge Grayport, or you'll have a massacre on your hands that the whole world will hear about and curse your name!"

  There was more shuffling of the soldiers, each with a bead on a River Camp person who held a rifle. Judge Grayport frowned at his son's arrows in the ground. Everyone waited for him to decide—to choose the Lib-Org or the people.

  "Maybe, for once," the judge said to Commander Morris, "I should listen to the people."

  "You're afraid of this? I'm not afraid of them!" Morris sneered and cursed at the weakness above him. "A few hunting rifles and sticks in the hands of women and kids? I've slaughtered more aggressors for less reason than this."

  "Maybe you have. But you won't today. My son is one of those people." The judge squared his shoulders and glanced at Eric. Then, he drew his own sidearm and aimed it at the commander. "No one else in Mastover dies for the Liberation Organization."

  Following the judge's boldness, the Mastover troops swung their assault rifles from the River Camp people to Commander Morris' twenty soldiers.

  "What are you doing?" Morris, even with all of his authority, held back the order to fire as he seemed to calculate the odds—one hundred against twenty, not counting the few marksmen on the roofs. "You are a Lib-Org protectorate, Judge Grayport! You signed a treaty of allegiance to me! I am fighting for your freedom and the right to—"

  "Enough!" The judge's handgun shook, but it was clearly aimed at the commander's chest. "You take your men and leave Mastover forever! If you return, it'll be an act of war!"

  "You're making a mistake, Judge." Morris stepped toward the judge, but Grayport didn't back away. Instead, he pushed his gun muzzle directly into the commander's gut. Morris hesitated, perhaps gauging the judge's nerve. "Okay, I'll leave. But this isn't the end. No, the end will have you up there on that stake. You'll burn for this, Grayport! Burn!"

  Commander Morris swatted the pistol aside and gestured to his seemingly invincible twenty men. They backed off slowly, rifles held ready, and walked toward their vehicles waiting yards away on the street.

  No one else in the square moved until the vehicles roared away. Then, the judge holstered his sidearm and slowly approached Eric. Eric noticed a new light in the man's eyes, but the judge didn't move to release him.

  "I probably should've done that a long time ago," the judge said.

  "The timing seemed perfect to me." Eric felt fresh tears on his cheeks. "The people are just looking for a strong, benevolent leader. Is that you, Judge?"

  "Benevolent?" The judge snorted and drew a pocket knife. "The Lib-Org will level Mastover for my benevolence."

  The judge cut the tether around Eric's throat, then knelt to saw at the ropes around his legs. Once loosed, Eric kicked firewood away and stumbled free. Hicks uncuffed his wrists. Eric stood shoulder to shoulder with the judge, staring up at the people, who were silent again, but with a new radiance to their faces Eric hadn't seen before. He couldn't wait to hear how and why they'd suddenly rallied together to help him.

  "They'll back you, Judge, if you stand up for them. Like you did today."

  "I had a little inspiration." The judge looked at Eric out of the corner of his eye. "It didn't sit well with me that I was killing the only man who's helped us the most this past year. That beef saved us all. We'll make it through the winter now. Unless the Lib-Org attacks before the snow falls."

  "You won't have to face Commander Morris at all," Eric said, "if you blow up the bridge west of town. And if you also destroy the bridge south of town, Mastover will be just plain inaccessible. The Lib-Org will have to find another route to supply their front lines."

  "So, finding cattle out on the range isn't the only trick up your sleeve?" The judge eyed Eric suspiciously. "You'll help us?"

  "I may or may not have more ideas." Eric gazed up at the River Camp people who still stood above them. "But I'll help keep your people safe and at peace. Your son is also someone who should be at your side, you know."

  "Just keep that God stuff to yourself."

  "You don't get me without my God, Judge Grayport." Eric waved at Gretchen, and she waved back, grinning, her red hair blowing in the wind. Since Joel Grayport was there, as well as Major Milton, there had obviously been some reconciling in Eric's absence. "It's my God who's going to continue to do mighty things for the people of Mastover, so you decide now: do you want to rely on yourself, or do you want the favor of God?"

  "From one idiotic agreement to the next . . ." The judge cursed. "Do I have a choice?"

  "I need to hear it."

  "Okay. Let's figure out how to stay alive. Together." The judge hesitated, then offered his bony hand. "If you bring your imaginary deity with you, and you think that makes you stronger for the rest of us, I guess I'll just have to accept it."

  Eric gripped the judge's hand.

  "You stick with me, Judge. You'll find my God is far from imaginary."

  The two shook hands, and a cheer erupted, a thunderous sound in the courtyard. The cheer wasn't only from the mouths of the River Camp people, but from the soldiers of Mastover as well.

  #######

  That night, the people of River Camp inhabited the town of Mastover, many of them moving back into homes they'd abandoned a year earlier when they joined Major Milton's resistance. After sunset, however, a few of Eric's companions from River Camp gathered next to the courthouse, and Hank Worcester started a fire using the wood meant to burn Eric alive. His wife, Sara, provided some deer steaks and the clan seemed oblivious to the reality that they were in the middle of town. A couple even laid out tarps to sleep on through the warm summer night.

  "The judge still has a lot to answer for," Hank said as Eric sat on a tarp with Andy. "There needs to be more changes than he knows if we're all coming back to live here."

  "I don't want to live here." Andy looked up at Eric, his eyes pleading. "Do we have to live in Mastover?"

  "No, we don't have to." Eric nodded at Hank. "I'm all for change, but my place isn't here, Hank. Andy and I are going back to the mountains. A few of the others want to go back with us, too."

  On the other side of the fire, Gretchen pushed a board from the old gallows into the flames.

  "I don't know what we're going to do." Hank took his wife's hand. "I was a better soldier for a few months than I was a statesman in this dump."

  "Compared to a month ago, it seems there's already been some changes for the good," Eric said. "Last I knew, River Camp voted to push Joel out on his own. How did y
ou all come to see things differently?"

  "We were wrong," Gretchen blurted over the fire. "I mean, I was wrong. After you freed Major Milton at the bridge, he crawled out of the water and came back to River Camp. He told us that you were willing to die in his place, even for all of us, to keep us safe."

  "That major is more of a coward than I thought!" Hank spit at the fire. "Letting you die for him? Unbelievable!"

  "But he's the one who talked us into coming to Mastover for you." Gretchen walked halfway around the fire, closer to Eric. "After that, we realized we'd been wrong about Joel, even if he is the judge's son. We knew we'd need his help if we were coming here to get you."

  "Gretchen went herself to your cabin to get Junior," Hank said, "and she brought Andy with them. We met out at the highway south of town, then entered Mastover before dawn."

  "We were counting on the judge not wanting to kill his own son." Gretchen continued around the fire, then knelt on the tarp at Eric's feet. Eric was reminded of their first night together, when he hadn't known who she was. That cold night in the mountains, they'd shared a similar tarp. Now, like then, the firelight flickered on her face, making her hair seem aflame. "But the judge's heart was hard. We knew it would take more for him to turn away from the Lib-Org. But I had faith."

  "Faith?" Eric smiled.

  "Yes, faith. I believed you were praying. To God."

  "I was." Eric sighed. "I was praying a lot, and God delivered with far more than I expected. Look at us, all here together. I even saw Joel and the judge talking before sundown."

  "Can you ever forgive me?" She held her empty hands in front of her, palms up. "Eric, I've been miserable these last few days. So much was happening, and it was good. But then Joel came to live at River Camp, and Willy's death, and the pressures of the resistance— I just wasn't thinking right. I should've stood with you."

  "None of us were thinking right," Hank mumbled, then cleared his throat and lowered his head like he hadn't meant to admit wrongdoing.

  "What do you think, Andy?" Eric nudged his son. "Should I forgive her?"

  "She seems pretty sorry," Andy stated. "And she makes good deer stew."

  They all laughed.

  "It's settled, then." Eric stared intently into Gretchen's eyes. Something about all the conflict and reconciliation made him want her close to him more than ever. "You're forgiven."

  "Just don't be offering yourself up to die for people anymore!" Hank scowled at the flames. "I'm getting tired of saving your life, Provisions Officer!"

  Gretchen sat down next to Eric, facing the flames with him. Eric put his arm around her, and looked at the starry sky.

  "Thank You, Lord," he said for all to hear.

  For once, Hank didn't grumble.

  *~*

  Conclusion

  Eric crouched against a fir tree in a canyon deep in the Sharrock Mountains. Through the brush, he saw Gretchen do the same, her rifle held ready, waiting for the grizzly bears. Her father, Hank, was somewhere to his right, and Joel Grayport—armed with an assault rifle rather than his bow—was supposed to be farther up on the wall of the canyon, watching over them.

  It had been one week since all of River Camp had turned up in the town of Mastover to spoil the Lib-Org's execution of Eric. They had defied the mighty army of Commander Morris. Hope could once again be sensed in the clear Wyoming air. But first, they had to kill the man-eaters to secure the safety of the few families who remained in River Camp.

  Ahead, one of the bears snorted. Eric aimed at the rustling bushes. He had no desire to wound the predator. Joel had already made that mistake, and the bear's fury had turned on a child and killed Willy. Rather, a clean shot to the heart, one bullet for each bear, would do the job. But where was the other bear?

  Without shooting, Eric edged closer to the brush. Hank waved him back, but Eric ignored him. After all, he was Mad Man.

  Brown fur! Eric froze. The bear turned, the hump on its back prominent above the huckleberry bushes. The beast was only thirty feet away! It stopped moving. Eric frowned. Was that its snout?

  He fired into its dark, left eye staring back at him. The noise of the gunshot echoed off the steep canyon walls. Another huge mass lunged over Eric from the left. Eric fell onto his shoulder and rolled as the second bear leapt from the dense forest and soared over him. The second bear had been stalking him as he'd been stalking the first bear!

  A split second later, Eric was on his knees, a fresh round chambered in his rifle. He looked after the bear as it crashed through the foliage on a wild charge straight at Gretchen. Gretchen fired and a bullet zipped past Eric's head. Her panic won over. She dropped her rifle and scrambled for the nearest tree to climb.

  Eric rose smoothly to his feet and gazed down his sights. The bear's tail was tucked in its reckless charge. Above the tail, facing away, was the back of the bear's bobbing head. Gretchen wasn't going to make it into the tree in time. Hank screamed. Joel fired and missed. There was only time for Eric to take one more shot.

  He squeezed the trigger, aiming over the spine of the bear, at the back of its skull. The giant snapped upright, still moving forward, then fell limply in a tangle of tree branches and fur. Gretchen fell onto the bear at her feet, then hastily pushed off to stand over the kill that had nearly killed her.

  No one moved for a few moments, except for Eric as he chambered another round, half-expecting another bear to charge.

  "Everyone okay?" Eric asked, and remembered the first bear. He investigated by stepping through several feet of ferns and wild huckleberry bushes. When he rolled the gnarled skull aside, he saw the animal had indeed been shot through its left eye. "This one's dead!"

  "This one, too!" Gretchen announced of the second bear.

  "I'll get the horses." Joel started east to where they'd tethered the two remaining horses the people of Mastover had left in River Camp.

  "Two shots for two bears?" Hank rested his rifle over his shoulder as he and Gretchen stood over the second bear. "If he keeps this up, I'm liable to start believing his God really does favor him."

  "Both head shots, too." Gretchen beamed. "I think I'm actually starting to believe."

  She kissed Eric on his bearded cheek as he joined them. Ever since his rescue at Mastover, she'd been clinging to him and claiming him as hers, as much as the first week they'd spent together in River Camp, months earlier.

  Eric was elated at the attention of this beautiful woman. Not only was Gretchen making her matrimonial intentions clear once again, but she was also asking heartfelt questions, and seemed close to professing Christ. She'd even asked to read from one of his Bibles. Only two Bibles remained since the judge had thrown away Eric's pocket one.

  "We'll get a couple decent bedspreads out of these bear skins." Eric took a handful of fur and felt the fat beneath. "We don't have enough horses to get all this meat out, though. It's eight miles back to camp, and the sun's nearly down. Get your knives out. We'd best skin them and take what we can before dark. River Camp won't sleep until we get back with the news.

  "They're probably still on their knees!" Hank said in criticism, but then grumbled when it sounded like he'd meant it as a positive comment.

  Eric smiled, guessing the hard man was only days away from coming to Christ himself, as several others had in camp.

  Most of the River Camp residents had moved back to Mastover to live since Judge Grayport's heart had apparently turned. Living in the wilderness was harder, many had discovered, than living in even the garbage-infested town. But all that was due to change. Rumors of free elections and the appointment of sanitation teams had begun to circulate. Looking northward through a pair of binoculars, a trail of black smoke ten miles away could be seen reaching skyward. The sanitation crews were already at work.

  Besides Hank and his wife and daughter, Joel had elected to stay at River Camp with his wife, Lena, and their infant. Since standing against the judge for Eric's sake, it had brought him into the good graces of the others in camp.
>
  Major Milton Pickford had been more than delighted to bring out a stash of red, white, and blue armbands to distribute to everyone—even in Mastover. The resistance against Mastover might have died out, leaving many dead in the process, but now the stand for Mastover had begun. The major was remaining in the town, he said, to keep a close eye on the judge's newfound consideration for his people.

  The bridges west and south of Mastover had been dynamited, ruining the Lib-Org's direct approaches to attack the town. But no one believed the Lib-Org and Commander Morris' violence had ended. He would be back.

  It was nearly midnight when the hunting party crossed the river and reached River Camp. As expected, the few campers who had stayed ran out to the river to meet them. Eric eased his pack of bear meat off his back onto the river rocks. The rest of the people clamored around two fires burning high, and the story of the hunt began as quickly as Hank could settle everyone down to listen. Sara scolded Hank as he sniffed at a cooking pot, which he excused as the right of only the storyteller to do.

  Barb was there as well. With her son Willy gone, in her grief, she'd taken to caring for Lena, Joel's ill wife, and Shawna, their infant child. A couple other women slept in one of the lodges with Barb. They were Christian converts and adoptive mothers of several orphaned children.

  Since the judge had purged Mastover of Christians only a year earlier, these few believers chose to remain under Eric's care, still not trusting that the judge wouldn't have them killed next. But Eric had plans to foster the budding relationship he had with the judge. He did indeed have other plans and ideas for Mastover's well-being, and monthly visits into town had already been scheduled. Eric began to see them as evangelistic journeys. Though the judge wasn't a Christian yet, he'd stood against Commander Morris, so the judge couldn't afford to alienate any of his own people.

  Andy had brought a young black lab puppy from Mastover. He'd immediately named her Runner. The man in Mastover who'd given her to Andy said it was doing the town a favor by taking the pup—she would be one less mouth to feed in town. Little Runner was nipping at Joel's blood-spattered boots, the smell of bear still strong.