suffering remote. You remember some of the speakers I’ve brought in, veterans of that generation we now call the Greatest Generation.”
He braced himself, looking around the room, and now there were tears in his eyes.
“Tonight, tomorrow, in years to come, you will, you must be, the greatest generation. You must win this fight; then remembering all that America was, you must rebuild her and never forget…”
He sighed, lowering his head.
“Never forget….”
He sat down and for a moment there was silence. Laura, the girl in the choir, stood up and raised her voice.
Instantly all were standing, singing as well, and never had he heard it sung thus.
He looked at them and tried to sing, unable to do so, overcome by emotion.
The last stanza finished, a cheer erupted and all sat down, except for Laura. She smiled at John, and half a dozen of the choir came to join her.
And together they started to sing again, even as their comrades ate.
John lowered his head, gazing at his meal. Perhaps half, maybe a quarter for myself, he thought, the rest for Jen, the kids, and Ginger.
The meal done, there was a procession, led by the American flag, the school banner, and their fifer playing, over to the Chapel of the Prodigal with its famous fresco painted by Ben Long. The service had to be short and to the point, for John had warned Reverend Abel that time was pressing.
They had opened with the Lord’s Prayer, and just as they finished the back doors of the chapel opened and in hobbled President Hunt, leaning on the arm of a student for strength. All stood, many with tears in their eyes. President Hunt took the front, standing beneath the painting, and then slowly drew a Bible out of his pocket.
“I carried this Bible in Nam,” he said, his voice husky, weak. “I held it close the night I was wounded and lost my leg. There is a psalm I read every night I was there and I wish to share it with you…. We call it the soldier’s psalm, the Ninety-first.”
He half-opened the Bible, but it was obvious he knew the prayer by heart.
“‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty…’” As he spoke, his voice gained strength.
“‘Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.
“‘Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.’”
It was midafternoon when John at last returned home. The entire town was astir, at least those still with the strength to move. Don had flown a second mission and returned with word that the Posse was indeed moving, already past Marion. The first skirmish had erupted halfway down the mountain in Swannanoa Gap, ironically not far from where, over 140 years earlier, in perhaps the last battle in the Hast during the Civil War,
Confederate militia had fought to turn back Yankee raiders. The half dozen advancing up the abandoned paved road had been wiped out near where the old overlook and hot dog stand had been.
Another skirmish erupted along the dirt road farther to the north, longdistance sniping, one student soon dead from it and another missing.
In town, those men still with any strength were forming up, deploying into a secondary line.
Charlie was in the town hall, and fuming with rage. He had called in the report to Asheville, begging for support. And they had written Black Mountain off. They claimed a group was approaching them from the south and had already torched Hendersonville and there was no defensive bottleneck to keep them back. Everything they had was committed to that direction.
Tom reported though that Asheville’s barrier, just short of Exit 53, the narrow bottleneck of the interstate, and I-40, was now heavily manned by Asheville militia, but they were not coming forward to help pitch in.
Black Mountain and Swannanoa were on their own, Asheville most likely figuring they could take the blow and if the invaders were repulsed, that would be great; if the defenders were overrun, the opposition would be so weakened that they would not have the strength for a final push. Payback perhaps for the defiance over the refugees, even though Charlie had warned that if the town fell the last thing he would do would be blow the water main and Asheville be damned.
At three in the afternoon the militia, like something out of long ago, had marched through the town, fifer in the lead wearing his Union kepi and blue jacket, playing “Yankee Doodle” over and over, complete as well to a drummer from the high school and a flag bearer forming a tableau like the old painting. The street was lined with starving civilians who cheered them and wept as they passed.
A few could remember such parades from sixty years past and could not help but wonder at this, the sight in their own hometown, of kids marching off as from long ago, to fight others who but two months back were part of the same country.
Their training uniforms of college blue were now replaced with camo, donated by civilians of the town, a mixed lot of hunting gear, some military surplus, some of it way too big for the smaller girls in the ranks. But still it lent a military air. Some of the vets in the ranks sported helmets and more than a few of them were toting firearms that would have triggered an ATF raid in the old days… a couple of Thompsons, AK-47s, street sweepers, a frightful-looking .50-caliber sniper rifle, and a number of exotic-looking assault rifles. Piled in the back of a truck were satchel charges, some primitive mines, and hundreds of tin cans packed with scrap metal and a blasting charge, to be lit with a match, then thrown.
Making them had been a tricky business, and one student had been killed and two wounded just after church service while packing a “grenade” when the charge went off.
It was indeed like something from long ago, John thought, watching as they came down Black Mountain Road and turned onto State Street, heading east to the gap. He stood to attention at the corner and saluted, standing thus until the last of the two companies of infantry and the company of auxiliary supports had passed. Though it was a solemn moment, he caught the eye of more than one of his former students, a flash of a smile, a subtle wave, as if somehow they were still kids playacting even as they toted rifles, shotguns, satchel charges, homemade bazookas and grenades.
He and Washington had nearly come to blows arguing about the plan, and for a few moments John felt that the two months of Washington calling him Colonel had been nothing more than tradition and playacting. And yet, in the end, Washington had at last deferred, though he warned it would triple their casualties and maybe cost them “the war.”
After the passage of the militia up to the gap, John then briefed the hundreds of civilian volunteers, some barely able to stand, as to their task and where to deploy, while Charlie made sure that two precious cattle would be taken up to the front and there slaughtered and cooked, with all being able to fill their stomachs before the fight. Kellor had pitched a fit over that, claiming it was better they went in with empty stomachs in case of gut wounds, but Washington and John had won out; better to lose some that way than have half the army collapse from hunger pains. The last few precious bottles of vitamins had been pulled out and each combatant swallowed a double dose as well.
Carl was leading down over five hundred more from Swannanoa, those still able to heft a gun and fight.
John finally felt that he had time to get away and get his family out. Their home was on what was being defined now as the front line and he had decided to move his family back up into the Cove near the college.
Jen’s home, though abandoned for nearly two months, was still intact, though scavenged through, with a
