CHAPTER 24
April 3, mid morning
D
uring the night, the effects
of the chemical had slowly begun to wear off. Adrian hadn’t realized it was diminishing. He slept, unaware that his eyes had closed. He had vivid dreams of a strange future. It was the last time he would dream of it. In the morning, he was awakened by a fierce itching on his face. His hand came up and began scratching before he was even awake enough to realize he was able to move. When he did, he smiled, and slowly and painfully rolled over. He looked right into Rex’s face. The body was stiff now with rigor mortis. It lay on its side, facing Adrian, a look of total rage frozen on its dead face. Rex’s eyes were open, but glazed over and murky. It was an ugly sight, but Adrian was delighted to see it. Rex’s chest was a bloody mess from the buckshot. Adrian said a silent and fervent prayer of thanks.
He was dehydrated and weak with hunger. The drug that Rex had shot into his body had largely dissipated, but was still lingering. He had a raging headache. He tried to stand, but was too wobbly to walk. He crawled slowly on his hands and knees to where he had stashed his pack, which contained food and water. When he finally reached it, he was too weak and exhausted to do more than gulp several large swallows of water. He rested for nearly an hour, and then dug into the pack and pulled out one of the ration bars. He chewed slowly, taking frequent sips of water. He lay there for most of the day, slowly eating and drinking. When darkness came, he worked his way back into his trench and covered himself with leaves, and then he fell into a deep sleep.
Birds singing woke him late the next morning. He slowly stood and found he could walk a little. He removed everything from his pack but two ration bars and the water, and began carefully walking home. Adrian found a piece of limb strong enough to be used as a walking stick, and he used it as he went. He stopped to rest frequently, eating and drinking when he did. His strength was coming back, the headache was almost gone, and he was feeling better by the hour. He didn’t make it home, however, before darkness overtook him. Adrian spent another night sleeping under the stars.
April 5, mid morning
As Adrian approached the outskirts of Fort Brazos, Linda spotted him from her guard position. She exclaimed “Adrian! Thank God you’re alive!” She rushed to him and gave him a terrific hug. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of stale urine and sour body odor, but didn’t let go.
Adrian replied, “I am, but it was a close thing for a while.”
Linda noticed his weakened state and mosquito bite-swollen face and quickly put his arm over her shoulders to help support him. She asked, “Did you get Rex?”
Adrian said, “More or less. He’s dead, anyway. No more problems from him. Everything all right back home?”
“Yes, everything is fine. Now that you’re back, everything is fine. I was…we were all scared you wouldn’t come back.” Linda looked into Adrian’s eyes. Something in them gave her the courage to say, “I…I don’t know what I would have done…I…I don’t think I could have…” She buried her face in his chest for a moment, regaining control. “I know you probably think I’m silly, but…I think I have fallen in love with you.” She kept her face against his chest, waiting for his reply.
In a soft voice that filled her with a trembling hope, a voice she felt rumbling in his chest as much as she heard it said, “I think I’m falling in love with you, too, Linda. It’s just…it seems too soon to be decent. Alice has only been gone a little over a year. But the world is different now. We have to lead with our hearts in this world. We don’t have the time we used to have. Either of us could be gone tomorrow. There’re so many dangers now. But part of me can’t let go of Alice, not yet.”
Linda replied, “I feel the same way. My husband hasn’t been gone that long, either. My feelings for you are not a betrayal of him, and your feelings for me aren’t a betrayal of Alice, either. In a way, there are four of us to consider: ourselves and our ghosts. I believe that they loved us and would approve of us finding happiness again. Wouldn’t they?” she asked.
“I think they would. If the shoe were on the other foot, I would want Alice to be happy. She was too young and full of life to grieve forever. I think I love you, Linda. But I’m not ready yet, and I can’t take you with me where I’m going. You have a son to protect, and taking him with us wouldn’t be protecting him. It’s dangerous out there—hell, it’s dangerous at Fort Brazos—but it’s far too dangerous out there. Can you understand that?”
Linda replied, “No, I can’t. Where are you going? Why can’t you stay here?”
“Corpus Christi. I’m not ready to stay here. I have things I still have to do. If I don’t do them, I’ll…I’ll be restless, unhappy. I’ll regret not doing them every single day; every morning will have a bitter taste to it. It would come between us, and I don’t want that. I will come back if you think you want me to, and can wait. You don’t want me the way I would be if I didn’t go. I need more time to say goodbye to Alice, too.”
“I’ll hate every day I have to wait. I’ll wonder every day if you’ll come back, and when. I can’t imagine ever loving anyone else, Adrian, but I never thought I would love again before I met you. I’ll try to wait, but I can’t promise that I’ll be here when you come back. If I fall in love with someone else—and I’m not saying I hope to, just that it apparently it could happen—then I’ll have to move on with my life, Adrian.”
Adrian replied, “One of the things I like best about you is that you’re honest. You are brave and you are honest. I’d take you with me, but not your son—I couldn’t risk his life. If something happened to him, you’d hate me for it. If you went, it would have to be because you made the decision. He wouldn’t have that choice.
“I’m going to check out the rumors we’ve been hearing about the Navy using nuclear powered ships to set up a viable city in Corpus Christi. I have to see this with my own eyes, see if there is any way they can help the rest of us. Then I want to go down to the valley and come back up by way of San Antonio. Get a feel for how many villages and tribes there are, how they’re surviving. See what I can learn that will be useful for us. See how Texas is doing. Then I’ll come back home. I’m guessing a year, year and a half. It’s a long time to wait, I know, and I have no right to ask it of you, so I won’t ask it. If you’re still here when I get back, we’ll see how we feel then.”
They arrived at the outskirts of Fort Brazos and were spotted by villagers. A cheer went up when they saw that Adrian was back. A small crowd quickly gathered. Adrian stopped. Still partially supported by Linda, he announced, “Rex is dead. The threat is over. There will be others, I imagine, but this one is gone.” The cheering drew more people, and soon it seemed that the entire village was crowded around the couple.
Linda said, “Adrian is hurt and needs medical attention. Please, let’s get him to the hospital.” Within seconds, two of the larger men had picked Adrian up carefully and were carrying him to the hospital over his loud protests. When they arrived, Jennifer was waiting, having been forewarned. Adrian explained about the paralysis drug and the dehydration. The doctor quickly checked him over, put a salve on his face, and pronounced him fit enough for home bedrest for a few days until his strength returned. She said, “Sarah can give you the kind of treatment you need better than I can. The paralysis drug will have some lingering effects, but those will dissipate with time.”
Despite his continuing protests, the two men carried Adrian to Roman’s house with Linda walking beside them. The village had formed a line on either side of him, as though he were the center of a parade, cheering as he was carried by. Roman and Sarah were waiting at the house with big grins. The men deposited Adrian on the sofa and made mock bowing motions as they backed their way out of the room, smiling as they went. Linda, Bollinger, John, Isaac, Perry, Matt, and Tim all crowded around him, smiling and giving one another high fives as Adrian sat on the couch in embarrassment.
After a few minutes of this, Roman took control and said, “Look, folks, we all want to hear the story, but right now it looks like he needs rest more than anything. Let’s all meet here again tomorrow at lunchtime, and if he is feeling up to it, he can tell the story then. Okay?”
They all took the hint and left, except for Linda. She sat next to Adrian, holding his hand. Sarah gave Linda a knowing look and said, “Linda, why don’t you bring your son and that wolf pup over and spend the night? I could use some help, especially with all those men coming back for lunch tomorrow. My guess is they’ll be here at breakfast instead of lunch.”
Linda replied, “Be right back, Sarah.” She took off almost running and was back quickly, Scott and Bear in tow. Bear sniffed Adrian over carefully and then curled up on his lap.
Sarah smiled and said, “You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady!” They went into the kitchen, made tea, and sat at the table talking until late that night. Roman was run out of the kitchen the one time he tried to come in to listen. “This is girl talk, old man. You just go on to bed,” Sarah scolded him. Roman, pretending to have hurt feelings, turned and left.
April 6, dawn
Adrian awoke with the sun the next morning. Smelling bacon frying brought him out of a deep sleep, his stomach growling. He was famished. He dressed and walked into the kitchen. Sarah’s prediction had been right: the men started to come in soon after. Sarah and Linda had prepared the night before, and it was an easy matter to feed them all. Adrian was pestered with good natured ribbing and questions while he ate. Finally, after he had finished off a large platter of bacon, eggs, and cornbread muffins, he laid his fork down and began telling the story of his encounter with Rex.
As he began, he found himself falling into a natural storyteller’s rhythm, and everyone listened with acute attention. He watched the expressions on their faces and worked the story. He slowly built tension as he went along, enjoying storytelling for the first time. As he went on, Adrian realized that not only was he actually good at this, but that storytelling could be an invaluable tool in the future. When he got to the part where Rex had him at his mercy and was describing how he planned to take his revenge on Adrian, he knew he had his audience in the palm of his hand. Linda and Sarah had turned pale and looked nauseous. While he felt bad for them, it was still a good feeling, knowing that his natural shyness could be controlled. The men looked grimmer and grimmer as the story developed. At the end, there was a general expulsion of vehement swearing at what a monster Rex had been. Given the nature of the story, Sarah didn’t say anything to the men about their language in her kitchen; she felt the same way.
Adrian was in reasonably good condition again by the end of the next day. He walked the village with Linda, Scott, and Bear. They were greeted happily wherever they stopped to visit, answering numerous questions, shaking hands, and being backslapped. After they had pretty well covered the village, Adrian said, “Linda, I’m going to visit the families of the men that were killed, and then I’m going to visit the men that were injured. It would be an honor to me, and to them, if you would accompany me. It’s going to be a sad and difficult thing, but it’s only right to do it. Will you come?”
Linda said, “Of course. I’ve been visiting them already, as has most everyone else in the village. You know we already held the funeral—one large funeral burying the men in a specially chosen memorial plot. It’s not Arlington National Cemetery, but it’s as close as we can get to it. There will be a monument; one of the newer village men is a stone worker and is working on it now. It’ll be beautiful. But it will mean something special when you visit them. Of course I’d be proud to be with you.”
Over the next three days, Adrian and Linda visited with every family, spending several hours with each. Adrian didn’t want it to be a quick in and out. He hugged and held each of the crying widows and children. He spent hours with each as they honored their fallen loved one by telling stories of their lives. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done, but he did it well and he did it with all of his heart. Linda’s love for Adrian deepened with each passing hour as she watched him showing this gentle and caring side. She often reflected on how lucky Alice had been to have shared her life with him. Linda had had no idea of the depth of his feelings, no inkling that his heart could be that big, or that he had that much gentleness in him. He had been so rough and self-contained during the short time she had known him, but then, she had only known him during a war when he was under tremendous stress and responsibility. As she watched his heart break over and over, she was awed at this side of him that she had never suspected existed. If she had been in love with him before, she was completely lost now.
The night he completed visiting with the fallen men’s families, he called his Army buddies together. They left the village and walked out into the woods where they wouldn’t be bothered. Adrian carried a backpack that Sarah and Roman had prepared for him. It was filled mostly with whisky bottles, but also some sandwiches and water. They built a large fire and began drinking heavily. They told stories about Clif, each one adding details from their many missions and barroom brawls. They laughed often; silences were rare. As they got drunker, they began to sing songs and make toasts to their fallen brother. As the night wore on, they drank more and more, until they were so drunk that they couldn’t stand up. This night was not only a paean to their beloved friend, but also an emotional release after the battle and a reaffirmation of their bonds. By morning, the fire had died down to ash-covered embers, and the men were passed out in various positions around it. It would be several hours before they began waking up, each with a splitting headache and nausea. This level of drinking was reserved only for occasions such as this, and the pain they would feel for the next two days was well worth enduring.
Adrian had gone through many changes since the grid had dropped. He had fallen in love, married, and settled down, then lost the first true love of his life and had wanted to die himself. He had wandered into the deep forests of the mountains to live out his life alone, and then had nearly gone insane when attacked by the cannibal raiders, and viciously killed most of them. When the cannibals had taken hostages and he’d turned to the nearby village for help, he had realized that he had at least some small talent for organizing and then leading men into war. They had won that war with no loss of life, and Adrian had come to understand just how lucky that was.
He had come home to lead men into battle again, and had won, but at a price. He had lost good men with families that would mourn their loss for the rest of their lives. He had lost Clif, his best friend. Quiet Clif was gone, and it hurt. All of these events had humbled him in ways he had never expected. Then he had started falling in love again, but at the wrong time. Too soon, he’d thought. He hadn’t finished saying goodbye to Alice, and he needed more time to grieve—more time to say goodbye. He still had traveling to do, and a feeling that something is waiting on the coast. Adrian had learned the most when he was paralyzed, facing a hideous future of disconnected insanity. He had overcome that paralyzing drug to move his hand just a few inches, had channeled every ounce of his being into making that one move, and had done it. That was a lesson he believed had a purpose. There was a need for it somewhere in his future. Maybe it was a lesson for every day of the rest of his life, to understand how lucky he was to be whole, or maybe there was another, larger purpose. But now, it was time for him to go. He headed back home to prepare for the journey and say his goodbyes.