“Okay, okay, so we get the guy a cherry tree,” Cody laughed, a touch more impressed with the quiet Japanese.
Travis honked the horn and a fellow emerged from the house, shotgun in hand. They got out of the Jeep slowly and Travis called out, “Good morning. We’re in need of a cherry tree, and this seemed a likely place to start looking.”
Still cautious but warming, the man at the door smiled a little. “Well, I can see you’re a man of vast deductive powers. Now, the question is, if I had a tree, what would you give me for it?”
Travis, suddenly realizing he had nothing with him of value to trade, was stumped. Cody reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin, then tossed it to the man who deftly caught it. “How about that?” Cody asked.
The man’s eyes lit up when he saw the solid gold Krugerrand in his hand. “Follow me, gentlemen. I’ve got half a dozen nice little trees in bushel baskets, ready to be planted. He glanced at the gold coin again. “You boys can have your choice.”
Travis looked over at his friend. “What did you give him?”
“A Krugerrand.”
“God, Cody, that makes for a pretty damned expensive tree.”
“It’s okay. Through the years I converted most of my money over to gold, silver, Krugerrands. Trust me, it’s not the only one I have.”
“Yeah, I’m sure of that, but thanks, man. Thanks a lot.”
They picked out a perfect six-foot tree. The fellow wrapped the branches in burlap, so it wouldn’t become wind-burned on the trip home, and laid it in the back of the Jeep. As they turned to leave, the man called out, “You boys need any more trees, you be sure and come back, you hear?”
About an hour later, Travis and Cody pulled up at the gates in front of the judge’s homestead and honked the horn. The gardener let them in as Judge Harcourt waved from the porch.
The judge, limping a little, greeted Travis with a smothering bear hug. “Good to see you, Travis, good to see you. I thought perhaps you’d decided to play ostrich.”
“No, I didn’t even get a chance. Before I decided if I wanted to see the mountain, Mohammed and his provincial government brought the mountain to me.”
The judge stepped back, surprised. “You’re telling me you already had a run-in with Rockford’s boys?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, tell me about it, but introduce me to your friend here first.”
“Sorry, judge, my manners seem to be slipping a bit. This is my good friend, William J. Cody, named after Buffalo Bill Cody, the famous Indian fighter, to whom he is distantly related. You can call him Cody. Everyone else does.”
The judge’s eyes narrowed slightly at the mention of Cody’s name. “Yes, it seems I’ve heard that name before—mostly in law enforcement circles, if I remember correctly. But, Mr. Cody, if you’re a friend of this man, you’re a friend of mine. Right now we need all the help we can get, and if my memory serves me well, it seems to me you were spoken of with grudging respect for your ability to fly an airplane. Who knows, we might have need of your talents.”
Cody smiled. “Actually Judge, I’d like to talk to you and Travis about a plan I’ve been forming that applies exactly that element.”
“All right, gentlemen,” the judge said as he motioned them through the door. “Come in, come in. Your timing is excellent— uncanny, actually—because in less than an hour Congressman Turner will be here with a handful of Rockford’s most powerful rivals. We’ve decided we’re no longer political foes. We are Rockford’s enemies, and a number of us want to do something about it.”
After they had settled on the big couch in the living room, Travis told them about the militiamen in town.
Harcourt listened, then added somberly, “Baptism by fire. Now you’re one of us whether you like it or not.” The judge turned to Travis’ friend. “All right, Mr. Cody—”
“Cody, or Cody Joe, please. That ‘mister’ stuff makes me feel too much like an adult.”
“Okay, Cody, tell us about this plan of yours.”
“Well, first off, I have one of my men in Rockford’s Delta Camp; he joined the New Provincial Government last week. He’s a quick study with lots of military experience. He’ll ask the right questions and we’ll have some idea of what the good colonel’s up to from now on.” The judge nodded as Cody continued. “As for my plan, I figure there’s no more mister nice guys now. We need to take Rockford out, along with as much of his organization as possible. We have to shock his weekend warriors enough to where, if they do survive, they won’t want to play anymore. Here’s the deal: I have an airplane in the hanger next to the strip on my property. It’s a P51 Mustang, which was probably the best ground support fighter in World War Two, if not the finest fighter, period. The unique thing about my plane is that it’s armed. The fifty-caliber machine guns are still in it and operable —and I have lots of ammunition.” The judge’s eyebrows rose perceptibly.
Undaunted, Cody continued. “I also have a set of wing tanks I can jettison. This is what I propose: We take the wing tanks and fill them with a mixture of castile soap and gasoline, which makes a hell of a poor man’s napalm. It works damn near as well as the stuff we spread all over ’Nam. The plane’s altered to seat two people, with dual controls. Travis and I will take her up tomorrow and hit Rockford’s Delta Camp a little after dawn. I already know that the major ammunition dump for Rockford’s army is in that camp; by tomorrow morning I’ll know exactly where. If we can hit that dump with a handful of rounds from the fifties on the plane, or one of those homemade napalm bombs, we can most likely take out the colonel and a good portion of his army. At the very least, after we’ve attacked that base it’ll never be the same, and a lot of his so-called soldiers will be considering alternative lifestyles.”
Travis looked over at Cody. “How in hell did you get live ammo and machine guns for a Fifty-One?”
Cody smiled. “Hey, all it takes is money, and that’s never been one of my problems.”
The judge turned to Travis. “Well, what do you think? This is your forte, not mine.”
“To tell you the truth, I think it’s a hell of an idea. A Fifty-One, armed, like the one Cody’s talking about, will make a mess of that camp.”
“Right you are,” agreed Cody. “They’ll think the devil himself grew wings and came for them.”
Harcourt pushed himself back in his chair, and clasped his hands together under his chin. “Well, I’d like to run this by Turner and his people, but my guess is that he’s going to buy it. Turner’s preparing a grass-roots campaign to bring himself to the attention of the people of Arkansas. He’s having a hard time now because of Rockford’s methods of dealing with competition. With the colonel out of the way, getting Turner elected as the new governor of Arkansas would be a piece of cake. The people know him; he’s got solid credentials and a good track record. He probably would have been the next governor anyway, if not for the disaster.”
At that moment, the housekeeper announced the congressman had arrived with his constituents.
Turner was a slender man of about forty-five, with slightly receding, gray hair and intense, dark eyes. He radiated a straightforwardness and honesty that seemed remarkably nonpolitical. His handshake was firm, and when he talked, he looked you in the eye. Travis liked him immediately. He was accompanied by three other men, two of them were congressmen, the third, another judge. Since the arrival of Travis and Cody, the focus of the meeting had shifted from aggressive defense to outright confrontation and, when Cody’s plan was revealed, it was agreed upon unanimously.
While they talked, another conversation was being conducted miles away in the officers’ quarters of Delta Camp.
Reynolds nodded as he listened to the men who were reporting the incident of the day before. The description of the big man with dark hair and the woman coincided with his memory of the people at the judge’s place. Not only had they again gotten the best of his men, it appeared that they had joined forces with the guy who owned the fortress-like property on the western edge of town. Reynolds was unaccustomed to being “had” by anyone once, let alone twice. He wanted those people. He wanted to settle the score personally. Jotting down their descriptions and the vehicle, he dismissed his men, then called Communications.
“Dickens, this is Reynolds. I want an all-points bulletin put out on a vehicle—a late model, blue Ford van with Arkansas plates. I want everybody we’ve got to know about this. You’re looking for two big guys; one in his late forties, the other maybe fifty-five or so. There’s a good-looking woman with them—reddish-blonde hair, nice figure. There’s a Jap and a Latin guy with them, too. Find ’em for me, Dickens. Find ’em—you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Reynolds hung up, sat back and thought about the situation for a moment, then decided to go over to the colonel’s office and fill him in. These were some pretty tough characters he was dealing with. If something went wrong, he didn’t want to be the only one around to take the blame. He had seen how Rockford dealt with that kind of incompetence.
Rockford was not happy to hear that the opposition was fighting back. He was livid when he heard that his men had been made fools of in town. He pushed his chair back from his desk and glared at Reynolds standing in front of him. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. A group consisting of an old Asian, a Mex, a woman, a guy with a crutch, and one able-bodied man, did this to our soldiers?”
Reynolds lost a little of his aplomb in the assault. “Colonel, I know how it looks, but these guys are –
“Shut up,” the colonel barked. “You just get your ass out there and find them. I want to know the minute you locate these people. I’ll be in on this when we go for them. When we’re done, no one will try this again.” The colonel stood, put his hands on his desk and stared hard at Reynolds. “Don’t disappoint me on this, Captain.”
An hour after his conversation with Reynolds, Dickens, the Communications Officer, was on the radio to the outpost adjacent to Travis’ property—the house that had belonged to Jeb and his wife. Newton, the officer in charge there, took the message, then walked into the living room where the others were lounging around. “Got some hot info here, boys. We’re to watch for a blue, late-model Ford van and a handful of people Reynolds and the Colonel want found: two big guys, a good lookin’ woman, a Jap, and a Mexican. We’re to pay attention to the local roads in the valley. Sounds like they want this bunch real bad, so keep your eyes peeled.”
“Think I seen that van,” a voice said. Newton looked at the man in the back of the room who was cleaning his pistol on the kitchen table. The soldier paused, putting the gun down. “I saw a blue van turn into the property next to us a couple days ago.”
“You sure?”
“Well, I’m sure it was a blue Ford van. I ain’t sure it’s the one you’re wanting.”
“Okay,” Newton said. “Take Carlin and Blair and go over there.
Borrow a cup of sugar or something and check the place out.”
“All right, soon as I finish cleaning my gun.”
Newton went around quickly to the front of the table. “Hey, mister, I said now! Not tomorrow! This comes straight from Reynolds and has top priority, understand? That means if you don’t do what you’re told, when you’re told, you could end up feeding the colonel’s dogs—and I don’t mean handing them the food.”
“Okay, okay, I’m going,” the soldier said reluctantly. “Blair, Carlin, let’s go!”
Christina and Carlos were in the garden with Will, trying to get some tomato plants started, when she saw the three men come off the path and into the clearing. It was obvious that they were NPG military. They strolled over with the cocksure attitude of soldiers who know that their actions, however inappropriate, are afforded complete impunity.
The Gestapo
Syndrome
, she thought .
As the soldiers approached, Christina rose and brushed down her skirt. Carlos and Will stood on either side of her. Ra, who had been playing with Todd, lay in the tall grass about twenty feet away, watching—not moving.
Corporal Eastern, the soldier who had been ordered to the house, was not in a terrific mood. He was a man with a quick temper and he was already on edge. He stopped in front of the woman and her friends. “You folks own that van over there?”
Christina paused for a moment, wishing Travis were there. “Yes, it’s ours.”
“I’m looking for a big guy, dark hair. Is he here?”
Christina tossed her hair back. “That’s a pretty broad description. It probably fits fifty percent of the men in Arkansas. If you can give me a little more information, then maybe I can tell you I haven’t seen him.”
The corporal stepped forward menacingly. “You’d be wise not to give me any trouble, lady. Now just answer my question and don’t jerk me around.”
“Or what? You going to put me against a wall and shoot me?” The man’s eyes narrowed, but before he could do anything, Will stepped in front of Christina. “I think you fellas ought to leave now. Far as I know, working in the garden ain’t illegal yet, even by your standards. So, unless there’s something else we can do for you . . .”
The corporal’s short temper ignited when Will stood up to him, and he lost what little control he had. “Yeah, there’s something else you can do, old man. You can get the hell out of my way.” He grabbed Will and threw him to the ground, then reached for Christina.
Ra covered the distance between himself and the men in three bounds, like a wounded lion coming out of the tall grass on the Serengeti. The corporal had just enough time to turn pale before Ra hit him in the chest in typical Rottweiler fashion, using his body weight to knock his opponent down. Few people do well with a snarling one-hundred-fifty-pound dog on their chest, and the corporal was no exception. He lay there in an excellent imitation of a frozen fish filet, as Ra stood on him, a slow, throaty growl issuing from his bared teeth.
As the other two started to raise their guns, bringing them around toward Ra, Christina pulled her hand out of her apron and, aiming her trusty nine millimeter, fired a shot into the dirt between them to get their attention. “I wouldn’t even consider shooting that dog, gentlemen. If you’re not convinced that I can take you, look over at the house.” The sensei was at the front door with an M16 and the preacher was at the window, rifle in hand. Christina stared at the soldiers. “It’s your call, boys.” The two men looked at each other, then down at the corporal, and slowly lowered their guns.