State of Rebellion

the revolver, and using the man’s own finger, fired two rounds into the air before dropping the hand and the gun back to the ground. He retraced his steps to his truck, entered the driver’s seat, and threw the vehicle into gear, once again spinning tires as he maneuvered around the sheriff’s vehicle, pulling onto the highway.

“Dude, that was a sheriff’s deputy,” the young man in the rear seat whined to his young companion, “and he shot him. He killed a cop!”

Krueger growled. “You’re right, Private, he was a deputy. Now he’s meat for worms.”

Chapter 2

Davis, California

Daniel Rawlings stood under the shower nozzle, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. Rivulets of steaming hot water ran down his face as he tried to wash away the night sweat and anxiety that always accompanied the dream. For over two years, he had been haunted by a recurring nightmare. It always woke him and left him sitting up in bed, his heart racing. Over and over, he had been forced by an involuntary, self-inflicted penance to watch Susan die, each time as realistically as the first, though in the dream his wife’s face was absent- replaced by a blurred image beneath her fur-lined hood.

He’d knelt in the snow and held her in his arms while she died, but she’d not been able to speak. Ever since, he’d been unable to convince himself that there wasn’t something, anything, he could have done to prevent her death.

The dream always brought Dan awake, sweating and trembling, wishing for the thousandth time that it might only be a dream. Then, unable to erase the gruesome image from his mind or fall back to sleep, he would get out of bed and climb into the shower, hoping the hot water and steam might somehow purge the painful memories.

Stepping out of the shower, Dan toweled off, wiped the fog from the bathroom mirror, and lathered his face. Staring back at him were the same blue eyes, the same thick, dark brown hair and heavy overnight beard. There was even the same body, exercised regularly in an almost ritualistic pattern. At slightly over six feet, Dan had maintained every aspect of his physical attributes that Susan had so loved. It seemed peculiar to him that all physical signs were void of the devastation that had occurred within his heart, his soul. Those he had been unable to maintain, to exercise, even to control.

He and Susan had been married for less than a year when she died, and his morning ritual-a return to reality more than an awakening from sleep-was born of frustration at a reluctant but forced acceptance of the ever-present nightmare, of Susan’s absence, and the brevity of the marriage they had been promised. A widower at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, eternity seemed a long time away.

The one redeeming benefit of waking so early was that after clearing his head of the memories, he was able to shift mentally into another frame of mind and make good use of the pre-dawn hours to work on the novel he was writing. He had spent hundreds of hours at his computer, his imaginary characters filling the lonely void in his life. In many respects, Voices in My Blood had been his salvation.

Despite the bitter cold of the winter morning, sweat saturated the young soldier’s ragged uniform, and salty droplets ran from his forehead, stinging his eyes. Four of them lay abreast in their shallow log bunker, awaiting the next assault by the British regulars.

“There’s no hope, Ned,” the young man said, his voice tight with fear.

“Don’t give in, Tommy, we ain’t dead yet. An’ you’ll see, sure as shootin’, Ethan’s boys’ll come swoopin’ down outta them Green Mountains, and the redcoats’ll scatter like scared rabbits.”

Nearly four hundred and fifty pages of his heart and soul, not to mention personal satisfaction derived from the effort, lay on his desk, ready to be sealed in a U.S. Priority Mail envelope and sent off to a New York literary agent. Born of a year’s worth of sleeplessness, early morning hours, and long, nighttime sessions that had replaced, in large part, any semblance of a social life, the book he hoped would be the next great American novel was finally finished.

Rawlings had needed an outlet for the persistent pain, and he had turned to what he had come to think of as “the voices in his blood” for diversion. Fired by the stories told him by his grandfather, Jack Rumsey, Dan’s feelings for his ancestors had always been strong, but in researching and writing their histories, he had developed a sense of being literally connected to them. Unable to objectively judge its worth, Dan came to view his novel-tentatively titled Voices in My Blood-as a catharsis for his grief following the death of his bride. The task of writing a novel had proven far more daunting than he had imagined, but it had also consumed him.

The Rumsey family, his progenitors on his mother’s side, had come from England to the American colonies with the first wave of settlers early in the seventeenth century. Over several generations, they had pioneered the frontiers and been involved in pushing the borders of the fledgling United States ever westward, some crossing the plains in the traditional route, untended grave sites marking the extent of their passage.

The Rumseys, a current-day amalgamation of Macabees, Standishs, Morrins, and a host of other Anglo-Saxon and northern European names, had become a hardy bunch. Together with a smattering of native American Indian blood, they had lived, labored, fought, and propagated during a volatile and romantic period in American history. Like many families of that turbulent era, some were more adventurous, exhibiting a restless bent that brought them at last to the fertile valleys of central and northern California.

Dan Rawlings loved the beautiful Rumsey Valley, nestled in the eastern foothills of the California coastal range, northwest of Sacramento. Another branch of his ancestors had eventually settled there in 1867, the final stop for the formerly South Carolina Rumseys who moved west after the Civil War. It was where he had chosen to continue living, surrounded by the echoes of the past.

Rawlings had found it easy to identify with these robust, often reckless people. Indeed, after he had researched their names, histories, and genealogy, the characters had taken on lives of their own, something Dan found immensely intriguing. The daily task of writing had become an adventure, and as he turned on his computer each morning, he did so with a feeling of curiosity, wondering what his characters might end up doing as he explored their lives and feelings. The “voices in his blood” sang to him, and he found it emotionally satisfying to speculate about their lives and to embellish their stories.

After earning a degree in political science from the University of California at Davis, Dan had then graduated with honors from Stanford Law School. Out of a sense of patriotism, or perhaps his family’s sense of performing their civic duty, he joined the California National Guard in Sacramento, spending six months on active duty at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, becoming a JAG officer.

His marriage to Susan completed what he felt was the foundation of a wonderful life, personally and professionally. Landing a job as the city attorney in Susanville, California, high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, was the finishing touch. With work he loved to do and living near the skiing that Susan loved so much, the two of them seemed destined to enjoy the good life. But Susan’s tragic death just one year later had instantly changed all that. She was twenty-four, he was twenty-six, and their marriage was barely one.

Five months after the accident, still numb from the loss and unable to deal with the memories he and Susan had built in Susanville, Dan resigned his position as city attorney and accepted a job as county administrator in Yolo County, near Sacramento, returning to the geographic roots of his ancestors. Rather than live in Woodland, the county seat, and the town where the county offices were located, he had chosen to live in Davis, near the University of California, where he would have easy access to the library and its resources. Dan had disciplined himself to work at least a few hours each day on his manuscript, and the daily routine had proven to be his salvation in the two years that had passed since Susan’s death. He had settled into a lonely, but comfortable, routine, and it was only a fifteen-minute drive to work-just enough time to clear his head and make the transition from aspiring novelist to county administrator.