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  Smiling, he opened the small duffle bag of equipment he had previously gathered for Adrian and had brought with him back to Baton Rouge. He fondled every piece in the bag. The bag was small and tightly packed; he had kept it even though he hadn’t really thought he would ever get to use it. Now, he knew its usefulness was back.

  CHAPTER 3

  MARCH 2, NIGHT

  ADRIAN AND HIS FIVE FORMER squad mates—John, Bollinger, Isaac, Renny, and Clif—were sitting around an outdoor fire pit, sipping Roman’s homemade whisky. Adrian said, “I don’t know how he ages this so fast and gets such excellent flavor, but this would have been top shelf whisky in any place, and at any time. He did explain it to me once, but it was too technical to follow—sounded like a chemistry lesson.”

  Renny said, “You got that right. This stuff is hard to believe.”

  Adrian asked John, “So what’s the story? When I left, you and Jennifer had taken over Mad Jack’s place and were running it quite well. When did you move back?”

  “We came back shortly after you left. Jennifer said she was needed here to take over the field hospital and run it. I had a choice: come back with her and be happy, or stay there with her and be unhappy, and you know the old saying: ‘When mama’s not happy, no one is.’ To be honest, I wasn’t enjoying being the top dog all that much. Mostly it was just a headache. Here, all I have to do is take care of Jennifer and myself—way better all around.”

  “What about the rest of you guys? Ever thought of leaving and trying to get back to home?” Adrian asked.

  Bollinger spoke. “We talked about it some in the beginning, but none of us thought it would do much good. We’re all so far away from our original homes that it would take months of walking to get there, and what are the odds? All of us were city boys, and you know what happened in the cities. If we did get back there, we would have just about less than zero chances of finding any surviving family, and none of us had any close family to start with. Not having close kin was why we were all in that unit—or, at least, one of the main reasons.” The other men nodded.

  Isaac said, “This is home. It was home from the moment we walked out of that bamboo and Roman called us his sons. I’d never been called ‘son’ by anyone before, and he genuinely meant it—still does. I wouldn’t leave here; it’s home, Adrian, the home I never had. I’m married and happy and I do work I enjoy.”

  Clif, who rarely spoke, chimed in. “What would we go back to? An orphanage? Foster parents who only saw me as a meal ticket? No, I’m here and staying.” Adrian was impressed by what, for Clif, was a long speech. Clif had been with Adrian the longest, had been on the most missions with him. There was a special bond between the two because of the years together and the dangers faced. He could always count on Clif to have his back and do what needed to be done. Adrian reflected, “That’s the most he’s said at one time in years.”

  Adrian replied, “You know, when I think back on it, we were more like a family than a military unit. I think that’s why Roman took to you guys so quickly. He sensed the bond we already had. Roman raised me as best I would let him after my parents died. He treated me exactly the same as he did his own children, loved me just as much. He’s truly been like a second father to me”.

  Adrian shifted around to face the men more fully.

  “Okay guys, we’ve apparently got some raiders headed this way. A bunch of them, maybe up to two hundred. We don’t know enough about them yet. Getting good, solid information is absolutely essential. I’m going to be organizing a fighting unit here with the men from the village and surrounding area. My first thought was to put each of you in charge of a group. It makes sense because you have the most experience. But our first priority is intel. We need detailed, rock solid intel. I trust you guys to find the raiders, scope them out, and report back what needs to be known. I can’t expect anyone else in the village to provide the in-depth quality or type of information that you guys would. You know what we need to know; anyone else would have to be trained and there isn’t time for that.

  “I also considered having you guys take over the fighting groups when we have the information we need, but there’s a problem with that. I’ll be training the fighting groups while the information is coming in. That means each group will have a leader, and they’ll get used to that leader while training. Even though each of you would be ten times better at leading them, there would be a lack of that comfort the men get training together. You wouldn’t have shared the training with them, wouldn’t know what to expect from each individual, and they wouldn’t know what to expect from you.

  “So what I’m thinking is that initially, you men will do the scouting. When the scouting is done, I won’t put you in charge of a group, I’ll assign each of you to two groups—maybe three, depending on how many men I can round up. To keep the group leaders from becoming jealous or resentful of you being put in charge, I’m going to call you ‘combat advisors.’ I’ll explain how we have been sent out on many missions to advise indigent combat groups, how we fought beside them and provided them with technical expertise without being in command. I believe this will prevent potential misunderstandings, and provide the best possible way of assisting them. In many ways, this really is just like those advisory missions we went on. I’ll have the confidence of knowing you’ll be in the thick of things, able to adjust the men to adapt as necessary to any given situation.

  “What I don’t want to do is cause any of you to wonder why you won’t be given a military rank for this operation, or to feel slighted in any way. Everyone else will have rank—you guys won’t—but it’s you that I will be fully dependent on to bring this thing off. What do you think?”

  “Bollinger, you tell him,” Clif said. Adrian smiled; that was more like the Clif he knew.

  Bollinger said, “Sounds like a good plan to me. It takes everything into account, and it’s a smart move.”

  Adrian waited to see if there would be any more comments. There weren’t. The men just looked steadily at him, waiting for orders. Adrian thought, just like old times. God, I miss those days.

  Adrian finally spoke again. “Tomorrow, two of you will go out and get the information on what we’re going to be dealing with. Any volunteers to be first?”

  MARCH 3, MORNING

  John and Isaac left before daybreak, promising to be back as quickly as possible—which was most likely in a few days—with the information. The other three were a little let down that they hadn’t been the first to go, but they knew their turns would come soon enough. Waiting was a skill soldiers develop, so they waited the way soldiers usually waited: bitching and crabbing amongst themselves. A soldier that didn’t bitch about a soldier’s life was a soldier with low morale.

  Adrian walked the village to get an idea of the new structures and people, reviewing the terrain and building placements for defensive purposes. Roman walked with him. As they passed yet another new cabin, Adrian said, “Looking at this place It’s hard to believe I was only gone a year. It’s three times bigger, and I see so many faces I don’t recognize.”

  Roman replied, “It could have been ten times, maybe twenty times bigger, but we’ve been extremely picky who we let in on a permanent basis. There are still many just looking for an easier ride, people who would be anything but an asset. Some of the grid survivors are just plain loony, also. As it is, we’ve still grown too big too fast. What was a tribe is a small town now. We’ve gone from the original handful to over two hundred. It’s unwieldy, but we let in people who have skills we need. I don’t know which I am prouder to have here: the doctor or the shoemaker. It’s unbelievable how fast we wear out shoes now, walking everywhere we go, working in the fields, going out hunting. We’re going to have to change our setup soon, though. Tribal meetings don’t work well anymore, and the majority of the villagers are new. The newcomers have been patient with me running things, but it can’t last much longer. We need to be better organized.”

  Roman stopped and bent down to retie one
of his shoe laces that had begun to come loose. He straightened up and resumed after a short pause, reminding himself of where he was in his talk.

  “Thinking about that, I invited two new families in—old friends of mine. Perry was a lawyer, best one I ever knew, smart as hell and extraordinarily honest for any man, much less a lawyer. I asked him to come and write us a new constitution and a new set of laws. He’s been here a bit over six months and says they are almost ready to publish. The proposed laws are written in plain language that anyone can understand, but that didn’t make them easy to write. It’s amazing how hard it is to write a simple declarative sentence that can’t be twisted to suit anyone’s needs, tortured into a meaning it was never intended to have. There’s nothing more diabolical than the human mind when it is in trouble. But if anyone can do it, Perry can. He’s borrowing a lot from the old Constitution, but he’s plugging the holes in it. The new one won’t be warped into what the old one was turned into. We’re intent on Learning from our past mistakes, so that this one will be much clearer, simpler, and harder to ruin. Along with the constitution, he’s writing an instruction manual on how to follow it, getting into more detail on the thought process and philosophy behind it and using concrete examples. It’s sort of like the Federalist Papers, but his are officially binding because they are referred to in the constitution itself as such. Then the instructions refer back to the constitution, making a loop that’s going to be damn hard to break. I’m looking forward to reading it from corner to corner when he’s finished. It’s a hell of an undertaking.

  “When the new constitution and laws are published, they’ll be distributed to each resident of voting age to study. By the way, voting age—at Perry’s suggestion—has been set at sixteen. In this brave new world, you’re an adult at sixteen, like it or not. A few years from now, we’ll begin having elections as the first appointed office holder’s age or die. I’m appointing the first office holders to make sure this gets off to a solid start, the way we want it to go.”

  “The new constitution will be the law; anyone who disagrees can pack up and leave—and damned fast, too. I started this village, and I intend to put into place a solid system before I let go control. Perry has also created a code of laws that is fair and simple. There will be only a few criminal laws; they are written in plain English, and they have teeth. There are three forms of punishment: community service or reparation, banishment, and death. We’ll have no prisons or jails; however, in preparation for future growth down the generations, imprisonment is provided for, as well. Perry will be our judge, and all trials will be by peer jury. The jury sets the punishment if they find the person guilty. Perry’s also working on a new set of contract laws, which, it turns out, is more complex. Those, too, will be in plain English—well, as simple as possible, given the intricacy of commerce—and will be impartial between trading partners. I don’t expect to see those for a year or two, but they are codified into the new constitution by reference.

  “The other old friend I was talking about is Tim. I asked him to come and be our town marshal, so to speak. We’ll come up with a different name for it, I think, but his job will be to keep the peace on a day-to-day basis and bring charges against individuals as necessary. Indictments will be by a system similar to a grand jury. I asked Tim to come because he is extraordinarily level-headed and has integrity that people intuitively respond to. He’ll be fair and he has no ties in the village, other than being an old friend of Matthew’s, Perry’s, and mine. By the way, Tim’s hobby is long distance shooting. He has a fifty-caliber rifle that he can pick strawberries with at a half mile or more.”

  Adrian had only been partially listening to Roman. His focus was on keeping the village alive. Roman’s plans for the future were good and necessary, but there was a higher priority on Adrian’s mind at the moment. Adrian said, “This place is hopeless against a large band of determined raiders, Roman. We could give them hell for a day, maybe, but there are too many weak spots they could break through, and not near enough time to fortify those spots. Once this particular raider band is dealt with, we need to make those fortifications and then some. But for now, we’re obviously going to have to take it to the enemy and keep them away from this place.”

  Roman just nodded. He understood what was driving Adrian’s thoughts and wasn’t the least bit put off by his long, rambling speech being ignored. He also knew Adrian well enough to know that he had absorbed the important parts of what Roman had said; the boy could absorb information like a sponge and store it for future reference while doing something else entirely. It was one of the many reasons he had wanted Adrian to come home. Adrian wouldn’t be distracted from the mission of defeating the raiders by anything in Heaven or on Earth.

  MARCH 3, MID MORNING

  They arrived at Matthew’s blacksmith shop and entered. Matthew was holding a sawed-off over-under shotgun that had been modified with a slide action from a pump shotgun.

  Matthew shouted, “Adrian! You’re a sore for sighted eyes! What got hold of you and where did you get that sorry haircut? Come over here and sit in the barber chair and let me fix that. On top of everything else, I’m the town barber now, too!”

  After they shook with strong grips, Adrian asked, “Barber? How in the hell did you pick that trade up?”

  “Aw, you know I’ve got two growing boys, and I was cutting their hair outside one day when someone walked by and asked how much I’d take for a haircut. Word spread, and next thing you know, I’m getting extra corn and bullets for something that simple. Cutting hair is easy. Sit down, I can’t stand looking at you; it looks like rats have been nesting in your hair.”

  “I cut it myself with a bowie knife back in the mountains,” Adrian said as he sat down in the barber chair.

  “Yeah, that would explain it.” Matthew started snipping. “This’ll only take a couple of minutes, and then maybe you’ll stop scaring defenseless women and children.”

  Roman took a chair and watched with a smile. “There was a reason I brought you here this morning, Adrian,” he said.

  Adrian asked Matt, “What’s that rig you were holding? Never saw an over under shotgun with a pump on it before.”

  “It’s my newest invention. I just got it perfected, and I’m ready to give it a field trial. It’s a wild boar gun. You know how hard those pigs are to kill? Well, this little beauty will stop them dead in their tracks. It’s black powder and shoots a .779 caliber bullet that weighs a ton. It’s a sabot round. The slug is bimetallic with a hardened iron center made of three flechettes surrounded by soft lead, giving it both deep penetration and wide expansion. “

  Matthew adjusted the tilt of Adrian’s head with finger pressure, then continued talking.

  “It’s fast loading because it’s a breach loader—the rounds are placed in and the powder inserted behind it after breaking it open. The black power is a pre-measured quantity wrapped in wax paper. Once the powder is inserted, you tear a small hole in the end to expose the powder to the sparking device. I have a small piece of sharpened steel on a chain attached to the side of the action for tearing the paper. The paper-wrapped charge is sort of like the ones used during the Civil War, but loaded from the other end. This baby is fast loading, no ramrods, and extremely reliable. I went black powder because I’ve learned how to make it and it’s renewable, as they used to say. Saves those precious tailor-made factory loads for more important things, and it will bring even more trade in for black powder and bullets.”

  Matthew adjusted Adrian’s head in the other direction.

  “The pump is actually an electric generator. Remember those old shake‘em flashlights? Like that. The electric charge goes into two capacitors buried in the stock. I made the capacitors with foil and cardboard and wire. Then I covered the capacitors in melted plastic so they’re watertight.

  They should last for decades. Pump the slide action to charge the capacitors, one capacitor for each barrel. There’s a switch to alternate the charging path for each barrel.
When you pull one of the triggers, it releases the capacitor charge into a little sparking device I replaced the firing pin with, and boom! That big old heavy slug will go right through the thickest gristle of the biggest boar and penetrate deep, taking out their innards, making a big hole in the pig. Big hole, deep penetration, acres of internal damage, and ol pig drops in its tracks. I think I can convert one shotgun a week. It should be a good trade item.”

  Adrian asked, “Why the electric stuff?”

  “Because I can’t make mercury fulminate caps. This way, I don’t need to. This has a tremendously faster lock time, too—almost instantaneous.”

  Adrian asked, “Shot it yet?

  “Many times. Works great on the range now I’m going hunting and try it in the field. I shot it into a couple of pig carcasses to see how the round would penetrate and develop. It worked great, blew a hole all the way through. As the lead part expands, the steel flechettes keep going, but on diverging paths. I aided this by making the slug a hollow point, with the hole in the tip ending at the points of the steel flechettes. The holes coming out of the pig were from the flechettes—those babies do travel. The lead all stayed inside, blowing up everything in the chest cavity. I shot it at various distances, and it has a rainbow trajectory. It’s not a long-range gun. Shoot it over fifty yards, and you have to really start elevating the barrel. I was hoping for some rain so I could try it out wet, but it should work just fine. I want to put it to the real test before I trade any off, so I’m going to douse it with water and shoot it on the range again and then go hunting.”