down air from the pass in a cool continual breeze. Luck was on their side as well in that it had been a tinder-dry summer.
The hundreds of fires merged together into an inferno, acting as the blocking force on each flank, flames driving eastward, cutting off retreat except back onto the interstate or the railroad, which were now kill zones.
At the other end of the box, to the west, at the interstate bridge waited what was left of Company A along with them every citizen of the town who could carry a gun, concealed behind the reverse slope.
It had been a bloodbath.
Once his outer defenses fell, the second wave of the Posse swarmed in, hundreds of vehicles pressing over the crest and, as John hoped, undisciplined enough that, sensing victory, they were now just rushing forward to start the looting and slaughter.
The fight at the bridge had almost been like something from the Civil War, hundreds of men and women rising up from concealment, leveling rifles and blazing away, shredding everything in front of them. Posse vehicles crashed into the barrier line and the fighting had turned hand-to-hand. And then along the opposite slopes fires ignited and began to spread, and as the last of the vehicles crossed in, Malady’s team shut the back door, using the two automatic weapons provided by Tom, complete with six thousand rounds of ammunition, backed up by citizens who had produced “illegal weapons” and students armed with a couple hundred of the dangerous homemade grenades.
The force on the bridge had nearly given way, though. For several crucial minutes John had been down, knocked out by an explosion. But someone had rallied the ill-trained backup force, and they were charging forward regardless of loss.
All that was left then was the killing, the closing in of the box, and when cornered their opponents knew their fate and fought with a mad frenzy. This was not the type of fight where surrender was a way out, and they knew it. There would be no escape for them, no pulling back to wait and to then lunge back days or weeks later. They were all going to die this day, and tragically, for Black Mountain and Swannanoa, it was going to cost dearly to do that killing.
Washington had warned of that before the battle, suggesting a false escape path for the routed who could then be hunted down later in a second killing zone farther down the mountain, but there was no other way, John realized. If they left an escape valve, a sound idea with a well-trained force but risky with the assets he now had, the surviving Posse just might break through and indeed escape, and then it could be months of a bitter guerilla war against the vengeful survivors.
It had turned into seven horrid hours of taking ground back, a step at a time, a bloody step at a time.
The medics were coming forward at the double. Wounded from earlier in the attack who had managed to hide and not get murdered, those wounded in the relentless push back, lay by the hundreds along the road. From up on the south side the fire was rolling eastward and screams could be heard, those trapped up there and now burning to death. It made John think of the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. One could read of that fight in the history books and feel remote somehow. Not now. Even if they were all Posse burning up there, it was horrific.
And behind him Tom’s men now came, deployed out in open order, and every few feet one would stop, lower his pistol, and fire.
The Posse wounded were to be summarily executed, and that was a task John wanted the police and older men of the town to do, not his own kids. They were hardened now, but he never wanted them that hard.
John slowly walked up the sloping road towards the crest and at last found him, a knot of students gathered round his body, heads lowered, some weeping.
Washington Parker was dead, killed in the opening minutes of the fight. The way he lay here seemed almost Christ-like, arms spread wide, heartbreakingly a young female student, dead as well, nestled under his arm as if in his final seconds he was trying to protect or comfort her, or maybe it had been the other way around.
Washington had insisted upon being in the front line, arguing with John that the kids needed him there especially to be led in the difficult task of feigning withdrawal, and along with the rest of the first platoon Washington had not come back.
John had held a hope that perhaps, just perhaps, Washington had managed to hole up someplace but knew it was unlikely.
John drew closer.
The man died as he would have wanted, John realized, leading “his men,” from the front, and John felt guilt, having fought the battle from the rear line, as a commander.
Washington’s “soldiers” were slowly filing by, battle-shocked kids actually, faces strained, sweat soaked, more than a few bandaged, coming down now out of the flanking hills and up the interstate, gathering in, and all now filing past their sergeant.
As each passed they slowed, and John watched them, hearing their whispered farewells.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Be with God now, sir.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
With frightful intensity it reminded John of the famous column written by Ernie Pyle back in World War II, about the death of a beloved officer and how his men reacted.
One of the girls knelt down, touched Washington’s face, and then walked on. Some were silent, some offered a prayer or thank-you; others swore out of pain and bitterness.
John fell in with them and walked up. All he could do was come to attention, salute, and then move on. The sentimental side of him was dead at this moment, still in shock. He’d cry for Washington later on, alone.
More shots from behind, the sound of the horn of a Volkswagen Bus honking as it sped off, weaving around the wreckage, hauling wounded back to the main hospital in town.
More vehicles backing up, the old farm trucks, the diesel truck now rigged to a flatbed so that several dozen could be loaded aboard at once.
“John?”
He saw Makala coming forward and without thought he grabbed hold of her tightly. She began to shudder with tears.
“Thank God. There was a rumor you were dead.” He shook his head.
Yes, his face was burned. The Posse actually had made up some primitive bazookas, fired from pipes welded to several trucks, and a round had detonated on the bridge, knocking him unconscious for a couple of minutes.
She broke from his embrace and stepped back, holding up her hand.
“Track my finger with your eyes,” she said, moving it back and forth, staring at him closely.
“John, you might have a concussion. And you got some second-degree burns.”
“The hell with that now. Take care of the others.”
She nodded, stepped back, and went over to one of the wounded, a girl, a volleyball player from the school. She was crying, curled up, clutching her stomach. John watched as Makala knelt down, brushed the girl’s forehead, spoke a few soothing words, and then with an indelible ink pen wrote “3” on the girl’s forehead. Makala leaned over, kissed the girl gently, and then got up and went to a boy lying by the girl’s side. The boy’s leg was crushed below the knee, and he or someone else had slapped a tourniquet on him. He was unconscious. Makala put a finger to his throat to check his pulse, wrote “1” on his forehead, and stood up.
“A one! Here now!” she shouted.
A stretcher team sprinted up, one of the boys looking down at the girl shot in the stomach and slowing. And John could see the agony in his face. The two had dated a year ago, in fact had been something of “the couple,” until she broke it off. At a small college, everyone knew about the lives of the others, sometimes not so good, sometimes rather nice.
“Over here! This one here! Move it!” Makala shouted.
The boy, tears streaming down his face, was pushed forward by the girl at the back of the stretcher. They loaded on the boy with the mangled leg, turned, and started to sprint back down the road. Makala was already up to the next wounded, pen in hand. She was now, as the ancients might have said, the chooser of the slain: 1 for priority treatment, 2 for delay till all Is were taken care of, 3… 3 simply meant they were going to die and effort was not to be expended on them for now.
None of the student soldiers going into the fight knew about this triage, though the students assigned as medics did, as did all who were now helping to clear the battlefield, but it did not take long for the receivers of this