1632

She forced her mind to focus on the moment. Her father would want her advice and opinion. Especially now, in such deep and unknown waters.

Mackay, she saw, was staring at Michael also. There was respect in that look-and more than a trace of puzzlement.

'Why?' the Scotsman suddenly blurted out.

'Why what?' responded Michael. But the question was rhetorical. The American placed his hands on Rebecca's shoulders and gently moved himself around her to come to the center of the room. There, standing straight with his hands on his hips, he gazed down on Mackay. The gaze was almost a glare.

'Why aren't we rapists and thieves?'

Mackay lowered his head and shook it. 'That's not what I meant.' The Scotsman ran fingers through his thick red hair, his face crunched into a frown. Plainly enough, he was groping for words.

Rebecca's father found the words for him. 'It is simply their way, Captain Mackay.' Balthazar glanced at the Americans in the room. His eyes lingered on the black doctor for a moment.

'It's not that these Americans are lambs.' He smiled. 'Some of them, I imagine, have even been known to commit armed robbery. Attempt it, at least.' James Nichols grinned.

Again, Balthazar's eyes studied the various Americans. They came to rest, this time, on Michael. 'And other depredations, I have no doubt. Brawling, for instance. Drunk and disorderly conduct. Disrespect for the public authorities.'

Michael was grinning, now. Rebecca did not understand why, but she was relieved to feel the tension easing from the room.

Balthazar's smile was quite warm when he turned it to Mackay. 'But they are also a people who cherish their laws. Which they enact themselves, you know, with scant respect for lineage and rank. From what my daughter has told me, they are the most inveterate republicans since the ancient Greeks.'

Balthazar spread his hands, as if demonstrating the obvious. 'This is why, I think, that their instinctive response was to protect us, along with our goods. The law was being broken, you see. Their law, not the crown's.'

The Jewish physician gave Michael another glance, lifting a finger at him. 'Ask him, Mackay. Ask him again. But do not ask: why? Simply ask: did you even think twice? Or even once, for that matter?'

Mackay looked at Michael. The American, after a moment, let his hands fall from his hips. It was a weary gesture. But there was nothing weary in the way the large hands curled into fists.

'I don't know what kind of a world you people have created here, Captain Mackay,' Michael growled. 'But we will be no part of it. None, do you understand me? Wherever our power runs, the law will be obeyed. Our law.'

'And how far does that power run?' asked Mackay.

Michael's response was instant. 'As far as we can stretch it.'

Mackay leaned back in his chair. 'Some questions, then. My first.' He pointed to the revolver at Michael's hip. 'Are your weapons as good as I-as Lennox-thinks?'

Michael glanced down at the sidearm. 'With a rifle, I can hit a one-inch bull's-eye at two hundred yards. Three hundred yards, with a scope. And I'm not the best marksman among us, not by a long shot.' He stared out the window, as if examining the town. 'There are other things, also, which we can make.'

Michael brought his eyes back to Mackay. Blue and cold. 'Your next question,' he commanded.

Mackay jerked his head, pointing to the ceiling and the rooms above. 'There is a small fortune up there, Michael of the Americans. It belongs to the king of Sweden, but he has authorized me to dispense it as I see fit. Will you take his colors?'

'No.' Very blue and very cold. 'We are not mercenaries. We will fight under our own banners, and no other.'

Mackay stroked his beard, thinking. 'Would you accept an alliance, then?' Hurriedly: 'It needn't be anything very formal, you understand. Just an agreement between gentlemen. And with the funds I now have, I could cover the expenses.'

The young Scotsman's gaze moved to the window. He tightened his own hands into fists, for a moment. And, for that moment, his green eyes held the same glitter as Michael's. 'Think of us what you will, American. I take no more pleasure than you in seeing farmers and their children massacred, or their women subjected to vile abuse.'

His right hand opened, and a finger of accusation pointed through the window to the north. 'Tilly's beasts are pouring into Thuringia. They will be taking the larger cities soon, and then plundering the countryside like locusts. I cannot possibly stop them, not with my few hundred cavalrymen. But-'

His eyes fixed on Michael's revolver. Suddenly, startlingly, Michael clapped his hands together.

'Oh-that kind of alliance!' he exclaimed. Michael was grinning from ear to ear. The sheer good humor of the expression, for all the ferocity lurking in it, was like pure sunshine.

'Sure, Alexander Mackay. We accept.'

***

Less than a minute later, Michael was out on the street, where dozens of his coal miners were chatting amiably with the Scots cavalrymen. Mackay was at his side. A large crowd was gathered about, most of them students from the high school who had followed them into town.

Rebecca, watching through the window, saw Michael's lips moving. She could not hear the words, but knew he was addressing the coal miners. An instant later, the crowd on the street dissolved into an orgy of celebration and back slapping. Julie Sims and her cheerleading squad again started that bizarre little dance. And, again, the students responded with a roaring chant.

Two-four-six-eight!

Who do we appreciate?

Scotsmen! Scotsmen!

The chant was loud enough to be heard through the window. More than loud enough. Rebecca thought the chant was bizarre, although she could not deny its raucous charm.

Then the cheerleaders began leading the crowd in a different chant and she was completely mystified.

Frowning, she turned to James Nichols. The doctor was on his feet, staring out the window, clapping his hands in time to the chant and muttering the same peculiar, meaningless words under his breath.

'Please,' she asked, 'explain this to me. What does that mean, exactly?' Her lips formed around unfamiliar words. 'On Wisconsin! On Wisconsin!'

The doctor grinned. 'What it means, young lady, is that a bunch of swaggering thugs are about to get a history lesson. In advance, so to speak.'

He turned to her, still grinning. 'Let me introduce you to another unfamiliar American expression.' The white teeth, shining in a black face, reminded Rebecca of nothing so much as a shield of heraldry.

'We call it-D-Day.'

Chapter 13

In the hours that followed, the Roths' home became a whirlwind of activity. Michael and Alexander Mackay, along with Andrew Lennox and Frank Jackson, spent the entire afternoon at the large table in the kitchen, planning out their coming campaign. American coal miners and Scots soldiers trooped in and out as the hours went by. Bearing commands on their way out, and bringing questions on their way in. The Scots soldiers would come and go quickly, but many of the American miners would stay for awhile, chiming in with their own suggestions and opinions.

Julie Sims even showed up, bouncing into the kitchen to greet her uncle Frank and take advantage of that family connection to sate her eager curiosity. Mackay immediately lost his concentration on military affairs. Entirely. Julie had replaced her cheerleader's outfit with a blouse and blue jeans, true. But with her figure, and the energy which filled it, the change of clothing was irrelevant.

Then, seeing the smirk lurking in Lennox's eyes, Mackay flushed and tried to keep his eyes off the girl. But he still did not manage to bring his mind back into focus until several minutes after Frank shooed Julie away.

Mackay thought the extreme looseness of the American command structure-if such it could even be called-was extremely odd. But Everything about these Americans was extremely odd, when you came down to it. Yet there was no question that Michael and Frank had the final authority on any decisions. So, after a time, the two Scottish professional soldiers simply relaxed and-to use one of those peculiar American expressions-'went with the flow.'

Others came also, to gather in the living room around Balthazar and Rebecca. The two doctors had remained, along with Morris Roth. Judith, now and again, would sit in on their discussion, but she was generally too busy providing food and drink for the soldiers. Rebecca offered to help in that chore, but Judith wouldn't permit it.

'Melissa will be coming over, any moment,' she explained. Smiling: 'I'll catch enough hell from her as it is, catering to the men the way I am. If she sees you doing it too-you're the National Security Adviser, remember?-I'll never hear the end of it. Knowing Melissa, she'd probably start picketing my house.'

Rebecca's look of incomprehension caused Judith to laugh. 'You never heard of women's lib, I take it?'

Julie Sims was standing nearby, listening to the exchange. Judith smiled at her and said: 'Explain it, why don't you?'

'Sure! Piece of cake!'

Judith went off to the kitchen. Grinning, Julie gave Rebecca a prйcis on the subject of women's liberation. And if the eighteen-year-old girl's version of it would have caused the more doctrinaire advocates of women's lib to blanch, they certainly couldn't have complained about the enthusiasm of the presentation. By the time Julie finished, the look of incomprehension was gone from Rebecca's face. Her expression was now one of pure and simple shock.

'You must be joking.'

' 'Course not!' was Julie's reply. A moment later, her eye drawn by someone on the street outside the window, Julie charged out of the house. Haltingly, Rebecca took a seat on the couch and began to listen to the conversation among the doctors.

At first, her mind was elsewhere. Women's liberation? Absurd! But then, as she caught the drift of the discussion, all other thoughts were driven aside immediately.

And, again, Rebecca's face must have shown her shock and disbelief.

Her father smiled at her. 'Yes, daughter. This is what I was about to tell you when you first arrived. So-what do you think of the proposal?'

She was at a loss for words. Are they serious? But a glance at the two American doctors made clear that they were.

It is unheard of! A medical partnership-between gentiles and Jews?