“you’d think I’d be used to this.”
“Last time, honey.”
It would be the last time she would ever see him.
The men moved out.
“Ben Raines is on the move,” Hartline informed the Russian commander.
Striganov lifted his head from a report he’d been studying. Disbelief was evident in his eyes. “What did you say, Sam?”
“I said Ben Raines is on the move. Scouts report columns advancing at full speed, heading straight at us from the south.”
“His logic escapes me,” General Striganov said, a puzzled look on his face. “His people took a terrible
battering at the hands of our troops. What does he hope to gain by this action?”
Hartline shrugged his big shoulders. “I haven’t the vaguest idea. But that’s moot, isn’t it? The fact is, he’s moving.”
“Yes, you are correct. Moot. Mobilize the forces for a push south. Meet General Raines head-on. Have those troops I left in southern Iowa begin marching toward Raines. Engage the Rebels and hold them until we get there with reinforcements. This time I intend to finish the matter.”
Hartline started to speak, then hesitated, a curious look on his face.
Striganov caught the hesitation. “Is something the matter, Sam?”
““Yes … I think so. Our intelligence shows a group-or groups-of armed people moving toward us not just from the south-that’s Raines’s bunch of Rebels, we know who that is-but also from the west, the east and from the north.”
“Who could it possibly be?”
When Hartline explained who it was, the Russian began laughing. “Children and old men!” he howled out his mirth, pounding his hands on his desk. “Little babies and senile old men. I love it. Hartline, you have made my day. I find this hysterically amusing. Hysterically!” He sobered as abruptly as he fell into laughter. “Very well, our … enemies,” he giggled, “have been identified. So send two companies to spank the children, one east and one west, and one company to point the old men back to their rocking chairs. I don’t want to spare any more men than that.”
“Ah …” Hartline looked at the Russian, a strange
look in his eyes. “I don’t know, Georgi. Don’t sell these groups too short; they’re all well-armed and very dedicated.”
“Bah!” Striganov verbally brushed aside the warning. “Do not concern yourself with trivialities, Sam. Old men and children are no match for my people. You have your orders; carry them out and then take your men south to meet Raines. I’m counting on you to crush Ben Raines. That will be all, Sam. Good luck.”
The Russian returned to his paper work.
Outside the office, Hartline stood for a moment, his handsome features a study in concentration. He muttered, “I think you’re making a bad, big mistake, Georgi, but it’s your show.”
The members of the forward IPF forces were in a joking mood as they moved west, north and east to confront the “children” and the “old men.” This would be no more than a lark for them-a pleasant outing in the fall of the year. And it would be far easier than fighting Gen. Ben Raines and his Rebels. Those people fought like madmen.
One man stepped away from the parked column in northern Iowa, close to the North Dakota line, to relieve himself in the woods. When he did not return in a few moments, another man was sent in to find him. The troops of the IPF waited for the second man to return. He did not return. The woods remained still. Silence greeted the troops.
The IPF section leader, using his hands, ordered his people to fan out and to search the timber. “Nockopee!” the section leader whispered hoarsely, motioning his people to move quickly.
A shout reached the small group of forward scouts. In a rush, they ran into the woods. They stopped abruptly at the sight that lay before them on the ground.
Both men who had entered the timber now lay on their backs, their arms flung wide. Blood soaked the cool ground under and around them. Both men had an arrow embedded deeply in their chest. Weapons and all ammunition and equipment had been removed from the men. Their boots were gone. One of the men had a hole in his left sock, the big toe sticking through.
The section leader ordered his people back, making no noise, speaking with motions of his hands. He turned. An arrow hissed through the air and drove through the man’s skull, the point coming out just above one ear. He fell silently to the ground without uttering a sound.
The still and calm woods began to clatter and roar from the sounds of gunfire. The IPF found themselves surrounded, with no place to run, death facing them from all directions. The men and women of the IPF had little chance to use their weapons, because there appeared to be no visible targets.
The deadly and bloody ambush was completed in less than one minute. Young people began drifting out of the deep brush and timber into the blood-soaked clearing. The young people stripped the bodies of uniforms and weapons and ammunition. They took all the equipment they could find.
The leader of the young people was dressed in buckskins and jeans, moccasins on his feet. He was tall and
rangy and well-built, his dark hair hanging to his shoulders. His name was Wade. He did not remember what his last name had been. His parents and his brothers and sister had died in a house fire back in ninety. He had been alone, on the road, since he was eight years old. And he had survived. His weapon for this day-he was quite proficient with any type of weapon-was a huge bow, and he was an expert with the longbow. Wade could not read or write well, but he could survive.
“Strip the people of their uniforms,” he ordered his young charges. “Wash them free of blood at the creek. Dry them well.” To another group of young: “Hide their vehicles. They will be useful when we ambush the others.” He smiled and his smile was savage. “I think they misjudged our strength and our dedication to Mr. Ben Raines. I think the IPF people made a mistake.” He laughed. “I know they made a mistake.”
He walked to a small clearing and stood in a narrow beam of sunlight pouring through the thick stand of timber. Nature had managed to renew what man had destroyed. Huge stands of timber now flourished throughout the nation, in lovely contrast to mindless and short-sighted land developers, greedy farmers and stupid loggers; for between the factions, they had managed, in only seventy years, to rape the land, paying scant attention to the warnings of environmentalists and, in many cases, common sense.
Wade laboriously and with much silent lip movement, studied and read a map taken from the section leader of the advance party of the IPF. Finally he looked up, a smile on his lips.
“We will ambush the main column here,” he said,
thumping the map. With a finger he traced a red line drawn on the plastic map cover. “They are sending one company of men. That is approximately two hundred people. Twenty-five trucks carrying the men and equipment and several Jeeps for the officers and senior sergeants.” He again consulted the map. “Yes,” he said, “this will be the perfect spot to catch them in a cross-fire. They are one day behind their scouts. Let’s get ready for them.”
The forward troops of the IPF made camp in Indiana on their first night toward destroying the force of the eastern-based “children.”
Most of the fed and sleeping IPF members would never wake up from their slumber. Those that did would know only a few seconds of intense pain before the bullets of the “children” mangled them into that dark and endless sleep.
Just before the first changing of the guards, moonlight flashed silver on sharpened blades. A very slight grunt as cold steel slid between ribs on the way to the heart; a gurgle as a throat was cut, blood leaping free and thick and steaming in the darkness; a short gasp as black wire looped around a soft throat, shutting off the air. Eyes bugged and tongues turned black and swollen in death.
Then the camp was once more silent.
The men who waited to replace the guards slept on, sleeping through the tap on the shoulder that never came.
The “children” positioned themselves.
“Now!” a young voice called out from the darkness.
