The rest got the idea from the surfer and lifted Boats off the ground as a team. Jimbo waved them to gently lower the SEAL. He dug in a pouch for the hard candies he always carried out of habit after Afghanistan. He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth, then handed a few to his stretcher team. They sniffed them, then put them in their own mouths to chew the candies with the cellophane still on. Grins all around as the sweet fruit flavor melted in their teeth.
The surfer grinned broadly. His front teeth, uppers and lowers, were gone. He met Jimbo’s eyes and tapped his chest with his fingertips. The dude was wearing a legionnaire skirt and sword girdle he’d looted off a Roman corpse. A gladius in a scabbard hung from the belt. Jimbo noticed the scars on his forearms. They were old and showed as pink lines against his mahogany skin. This guy had seen action as a soldier.
“Bris,” the surfer said. Or maybe it was “Brus.”
“Bruce?” Jimbo pointed, and the man hesitated before nodding with enthusiasm.
“Jim,” the Pima said, touching his own chest.
“Zim,” Bruce said, brows knitted.
“Close enough.” Jimbo nodded and held out a hand.
Bruce looked at it quizzically. Jimbo took the surfer’s right wrist and drew it forward to take the hand in his own. Bruce smiled and laughed and pumped the Indian’s hand with enthusiasm.
Happy as kids, the rest all hung around while Jimbo trimmed the cloth on the poles to allow for additional handholds in the center of the stretcher. Then he had them lift again. Bruce took the job as team leader and directed the others to lift in unison with a series of cadenced commands. They bore the load well.
Now they had a stretcher team. The Rangers and Bat would have hands and eyes free to cover the withdraw. These guys looked like they’d be able to keep up. He tossed them some more candies. They smiled and nodded. They had a deal.
“I thought we freed those motherfuckers,” Chaz said, walking up.
“I’m not making them do anything, bro,” Jimbo said. “They’re doing it for the candy. It’s the free market at work.”
“Still don’t seem right.” Chaz shook his head at the men squatting on the ground, sucking on lemon balls and butterscotches and grinning like kids. Some of their backs were thick with old scar tissue from where they’d been whipped. Their ankles and wrists showed signs of manacles worn for extended periods.
“You want to carry that big bastard all the way to the Med?” Jimbo nodded at the still form of the SEAL on the makeshift carrier.
“Hell, no,” Chaz said. “But you better have a shitload of candy on you.”
They turned at Lee running down off the earthworks toward them. Bat trotted behind. Lee held the Legion banner in his fist as he ran.
“Dust cloud to the north,” Lee called as he reached them.
“That column we bushwhacked?” Jimbo asked.
“Has to be,” Lee said. “They strapped their balls back on, and chances are they’ll put whatever’s left of the Twenty-third back together when they get here and then be right in our asses.”
Bat waved her arms and shouted to the men in Hebrew. She warned them that there was an army marching on them. Most ignored her or looked at her dully. Others were stirred by her dire predictions that the approaching Romans would be looking to blame someone for the devastation of their camp. These men pointed at all the dead legionnaires lying about them and echoed Bat’s alarm to the others.
There was a babel of languages as the word was translated among them. The group was up on their feet, even the ones who appeared to be at death’s door, and began moving away from the camp at the base of the escarpment at best speed.
Jimbo made a lifting gesture with his hands and his team of candy-loving former slaves raised Boats from the ground and awaited further instructions. Lee nodded approval and laid the banner on the bier alongside the SEAL.
“I’ll take drag for now,” Chaz said and waved them on.
Lee trotted ahead to take point. Jimbo waved his stretcher team forward, and the tiny column moved roughly west into the cloud of dust raised by the fleeing slaves. A couple of dozen other slaves followed after the stretcher team. Chaz noted that a number of them carried spears or swords picked off of the dead.
We have ourselves an army, Chaz thought. Until the candy runs out.
Chaz climbed a corner of the earthworks and watched the haze riding into the sky off the road to the north. It was coming straight as an arrow for them. The pyres of burning tents were still sending up a thick column of dense smoke and the centuries bearing the boar banner would be unerringly drawn toward it like hounds to the scent of the fox.
He gave some time for the rest of the team to gain some lead on him. Chaz spent the time sending up a prayer for the Father to watch over His son.
“We done all we could,” he said, squinting up into the noon sky.
Then he turned to follow his brothers across Galilee.
38
The Tally
The ground was covered in a blanket of black-winged vultures by the time the third and fourth centuries of the Boars reached the ruined fort. The kites circled in the sky above and descended through the mist of smoke to feed upon the carcasses that lay scattered singly and in heaps all about the ruined camp.
Enraged, centurion Marcus Pulcher strode into the camp swinging his staff and shouting. The carrion eaters were sent hopping from their meals and finally to flight as other
