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  Linda said, “Poor man. Hard enough to lose your wife, but to lose a child you didn’t know you were going to have—that’s beyond painful. I don’t wonder he went a little crazy. When I lost Jeff, I had time to see it coming, and Scott to go on for. It was damned hard and painful. I can only imagine what he felt.”

  Sarah replied, “I know. That whole ‘stone age living’ thing shows how bad it was. That kind of desperation breaks my heart to think about. I loved Alice; she was a wonderful person. She died bravely, and well. That’s about the best thing I can say about the situation. They would have had such a wonderful life together.” Sarah’s eyes had gone watery.

  Linda said, “Here now, let me finish these dishes, you sit down and talk to me while I do it.” She gave Sarah a hug.

  The men in the living room had stopped talking for a few moments to consider all that had been said and what lay before them.

  Scott asked Adrian, “Where did you find Bear, sir?”

  Adrian replied, “I found him on my way home from the mountains. I was riding along and spotted a dead wolf, and Bear was sitting beside her. It looked like he had been there several days and was starving to death. I couldn’t just leave him there, not with him being that loyal to his mother. So I decided to raise him up enough to be able to take care of himself and then let him decide what to do—go back to being wild or stay with me.”

  Scott asked, “He just let you pick him up?”

  “Oh no. He put up a ferocious fight. Bit me several times. But I finally got hold of him and carried him across the saddle. I gave him some water and some meat. He bit me every time I moved him for the first couple of days, then settled for growling at me. Much as I hated to do it, I had to tie him up at night so he wouldn’t wander off while I slept. Every morning, he would fight me all over again. Eventually he quit fighting me—mostly because of the food and water, I guess. He’s growing fast, getting more food than he normally would in the wild. He eats all the time, eats like he’s never had food before. He’s smart, too. I haven’t tried to train him, but he watches and listens and learns fast. It’s only been a little while since I quit tying him up. I expect to find him gone some morning, but so far, he’s sticking around.”

  CHAPTER 5

  MARCH 8, MORNING

  JOHN AND ISAAC HAD RETURNED from their scouting mission and gone straight to Roman’s house to find Adrian. John said “We found them with no problem at all. You want a full briefing right now?”

  Adrian replied, “How far out are they?”

  “I give it three weeks before they’re here.”

  “All right, then, save the full briefing until we can all hear it at the same time—it’ll save you from repeating it. I have a few key men who I want to hear your report. I’ve been talking to the village men, sending out runners to recruit more. As soon as you’ve reported, we’re going to send out two more scouts, then every three days, we’ll send out two more to replace them and the two that come back will fill in more details. That way, we can keep a running eye on them and stay current. As the raiders get closer and the scouts have less distance to travel, we’ll up that to daily reports by having two in sight of the raiders and one being replaced each day. Did you encounter any problems?”

  Isaac replied, “No problems. They were easy to find and to watch. They’re not trying to hide, and they leave nothing but devastation behind them. There are people running from them; you’ll probably be seeing some more of those before long. Might get some recruits from them, too.”

  Adrian said, “All right, you two go on home and eat and rest. I’ll spread the word to meet up here again at noon. Roman, would you ask Sarah if she can fix enough lunch for us?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Roman said. “I’ll tell her to put the tea on.”

  “Tea? You have tea?” Adrian asked.

  “Oh yeah, we have tea. After you left, we made several scavenging trips into Waco. We came across the arboretum and I took a look to see if there were any plants still alive that we could use. Found a few; among them were some tea plants. They grow well here and are easy to process. So we have tea. Not as good as coffee, but better than nothing.”

  Adrian replied, “Isn’t that something. What else did you find?”

  “You saw the banana trees—we got them there, too. I think we’ll be able to harvest some this year.”

  “I thought those were ornamentals. I thought they froze here in the winter.”

  “They do, normally. But I read that if you surround them with a cage stuffed with straw heaped high over them during the winter, they won’t freeze unless it gets a lot colder than it normally does here. In the spring, you remove the straw, and if they didn’t freeze, they’ll produce fruit. It’s an experiment, but if it works, the kids’ll love it. You’ll also be pleased to know that we have ice. During the winter, we tried freezing water and then saving it inside insulated boxes, but it didn’t work too well. Matthew rigged up an icemaker that’s run off a portable electric generator that’s run off a wood gas generator. Comes in real handy, and is also a nice luxury.”

  Adrian replied, “You have ice and didn’t bring any out last night when we were drinking whisky? Ice would have been great with that whisky.”

  “Son, if you insult my whisky by putting ice in it, I’ll never let you have another drop.”

  Adrian said, “Oops! My mistake.” He grinned as Roman turned and stalked off.

  MARCH 8, NOON

  As the men ate smoked ham and cornbread and drank iced tea, John gave his report.

  “We estimate one hundred and eighty of them strung out in a wide line. From end to end they’re strung out for about a mile, although it expands and contracts, depending on terrain and resources. They’re armed to the teeth, mostly military grade stuff. A lot of M4s, some AKs—stuff like that. Didn’t see anything heavy, no belt feds or field pieces. Looked like they have ammo problems, though. Most of them carry two rifles, one military style. The other is the one they use most; they appear to be hunting rifles in a variety of calibers. Likely scavenged weapons that they can scrounge ammunition for as they go. My guess is that they save the military weapons for the rare cases where they encounter heavy resistance, but most of the resistance they run into is scattered families with not much to fight with, so they use the hunting rifles on them, saving their military stuff.

  “They’re dressed non-military, wearing an assortment of civilian clothing, but move with some discipline. Not a lot of discipline, but enough to make you wonder if they haven’t had some training. They carry packs and have basic camping equipment. Tents, sleeping bags, ground sheets—that sort of thing. After they take over a house, they might stay in it one night, then burn it and move on. Or they might burn it right away once they’ve scavenged all they can. Depends on time of day more than anything. They all wear hiking boot-style footwear.

  “Didn’t see any signs that they are into personal hygiene; they had opportunities to bathe on several occasions, but didn’t. I did see a few that took some care with changing socks and cleaning their feet, so I’m thinking there are some ex-infantry scattered among them. But from the looks of those few, they weren’t good at being military. More like they absorbed some of the training, but not a lot of it. Overall, they are one hundred percent male, a mixture of races, mostly in their mid-twenties, and in good physical condition.

  “It looks like a Darwinist kind of operation. With that many men, you would expect to see a few injured or sickly looking, but we didn’t. My hunch is that if you’re a member of that group and get hurt or sick, you get left behind, or maybe worse. We didn’t see any left behind, so that’s only a guess. But then, we didn’t see any get hurt, either.

  “Food-wise, they don’t spend time hunting. If they scare up a pig or deer, they’ll shoot it, but they don’t go looking for them. Mostly, they’re eating what they take from others. Food is shared fairly evenly among them, so they aren’t raiding on an individual basis. A lot of them are wearing a bunch of rings
and watches, kind of reminds me of pirates. There are a lot of tattoos on display, a lot more than normal people would have, kind of like what you see with biker gangs. Some of the tattoos are prison-style. Lots of spider webbed elbows. All in all, a pretty rough crowd.”

  “Good observations,” Adrian said. “What about tactics?”

  Isaac replied, “They have an interesting setup. They operate in groups ranging anywhere from six to ten men. Each group acts in a semi-autonomous way, but they are linked to a central command. Each group has a definite leader and also a second in command. After that, they appear to be of equal rank. There aren’t any saluting or obvious signs of who is in command, but if you watch a group long enough, you can tell who’s in charge. The second level guy is a bit tougher to figure out, but again, if you watch long enough, you can eventually figure out who he is.

  “Each group operates independently, except for two scenarios. If a group encounters heavier than the normal light resistance, a second group moves over to help. We didn’t see that but once. I would assume that if the resistance were heavy enough, the entire line would pull in to help. The other scenario is if one group finds more food than it can use, then more groups come over to share the wealth. In other words, they share risk and reward as occasion calls for it.

  “Their standard procedure is to have scouts out ahead looking for likely targets. When a target is spotted one remains to watch while another goes back and alerts the group. The group approaches rapidly but covertly. They confer with the watcher scout who gives them the info he gathered. Then they typically divide into three groups and attack with all hands on deck coming in from three directions. They clear the house of occupants, then loot the house for food and weapons. They search the surrounding area for hidden food, sometimes finding some. When they leave they destroy everything.

  “Communications between groups and central command is by runner. They have a constant stream of runners moving up and down the line. That duty appears to be taken in turn by each man in each group, but the central command has four or five runners that do nothing else. It’s simple and effective, if somewhat slow. I get the feeling that the groups at the far ends are the most trusted by central command. Being the furthest out, that makes sense from a tactical point of view.

  “The central commander isn’t in the center as you might suppose. He moves up and down the line, checking on groups, picking up food and supplies and apparently keeping the line in order. That group doesn’t take on raids, but frequently shows up when one has been completed. They are a lot more mobile, the men in that group seem to be younger and fitter. There’s no doubt of their elite status, the regular groups show deference, extreme deference, the kind that’s inspired by fear.

  “We witnessed one disciplinary action by the command group. I don’t know what the man did, but he was summarily executed by the central commander. One minute the commander was talking to the guy and the next minute the commander killed him with a knife slash across the throat. His body was left where it fell. We were too far away to get real details. The commander is big, but with the hat and sunglasses we couldn’t tell much about him.”

  John continued, “When we left, they were a little east of Corsicana, loosely following Highway 31. When they hit small towns, they condense their lines and scour the towns, but it doesn’t slow them down much because they don’t find much. Then they spread back out. Their forward progress is erratic, given the way they operate, but it is a fairly steady five to ten miles per day. Call it eight miles per day on average. That puts them about sixty miles away as the crow flies, and they pretty much travel as the crow flies. I’d say they’ll spend a couple of days in Corsicana, maybe two or three more days as they come across the small towns. Best guess is they will be here in three weeks, two at the earliest and maybe four at the outside. That’s if they stay on the same track they’re on now. They didn’t deviate from it while we watched, though.”

  Adrian said, “Outstanding reports. We’ll need two more scouts to leave right away. Bollinger and Renny—how about it?”

  They smiled and nodded. Adrian said, “Actually, since they could be here that soon, let’s make it three scouts. Each day, one of you will return and report, and another will leave from here. That will keep one scout watching, one traveling, and one reporting, so that we get information every other day. Clif, can you follow them day after tomorrow?” Clif nodded his assent.

  “Good,” Adrian said. “Before you men leave, let’s talk about this some. First, any questions for the scout report?”

  Tim asked, “John, was the central commander easy to locate? Is he vulnerable to a sniper?”

  John replied, “He’s pretty hard to find, unless you wait where they’ll come across a house. He’ll sometimes show up there afterwards. He could be sniped if the terrain was right and the conditions were right. But he tends to stay in heavy cover, or have men all around him blocking. I thought about that as I watched him; his actions indicate he’s given snipers some thought. It could be done, but the sniper might also spend a lot of time waiting for one small opportunity that never comes. Overall, I’d say it’s a low percentage mission.”

  Perry asked, “There’s no particular indication he is coming here specifically, is there? I mean, if you look at a map and scale out their line, the odds of them actually coming right here aren’t huge, unless they are coming here specifically. So you have to wonder if there’s a specific reason for them to come here, or if they’ll veer off and miss us.”

  Roman said, “We’ve talked about that a lot, and going by what we do know of where they’ve been and the way they are heading, I think they are coming this way for a purpose. They haven’t veered off a straight line toward us since we first heard of them. One refugee that came through indicated they’ve heard of us, probably because we do so much trade and have a hospital. Face facts: we’ve been advertising our presence by trading with anyone that has something to trade, and word of the hospital has spread far and wide. It’s possible—even likely—that they’ve heard of us and got it in their heads that we are a prize worth taking. Fact is, they’re right; we are a prize. We have a great setup, we’re growing more food than anyone we know of, and we have medical facilities. Look at us—we’re drinking ice tea; what do you want to bet we’re the only people in Texas doing that? I think they are coming here specifically.”

  Perry replied, “Right or wrong, they appear to be coming here, and if they are, they’ll be here too soon to hope they won’t. They no doubt interrogate as many victims as they can, and the closer they get, the more they’ll hear and know about us. So even if they hadn’t decided on coming here from the beginning, odds are they will soon.”

  CHAPTER 6

  JANUARY 18, EARLY AFTERNOON

  REX WAS PUTTING HIS PLAN in motion today. The scouts had returned. Roman was not only alive, but thriving. He had developed a village complete with a hospital. Rex was thrilled to hear of the hospital; that meant his original plan for Adrian could be implemented without change. It was now just a matter of drawing Adrian back to the village and capturing him. He chose one hundred and seventy-five men for this operation. It would take weeks for the plan to develop. He assembled his chosen troops after informing the men that were not chosen they were to maintain operations until his return.

  “Men,” he said, “I have located a veritable Garden of Eden. A place where fresh food is plentiful, water is abundant, and warm houses await. There are plenty of women to amuse you and a fully equipped hospital for those times you may need one. It’s a center of trade, and we’ll charge outrageously for medical care. We will capture the village, make the men slaves to work the fields, and live like kings.” The men cheered, an uncharacteristic action for them. For men who lived by raiding, this sounded like a dream come true.

  “All we have to do is march cross-country until we reach this paradise, then take it for ourselves. The men there don’t know how to fight; they’ll be easy pickings for you. On the way, we will li
ve off the land, raiding as we go. We’ll travel light, but not too quickly. It’ll be an easy march, but a long one. Pack your supplies and be here in one hour. Bring canteens, food, sleeping gear, your best hiking boots, and, of course, your rifles and ammunition.”

  Rex assembled his honor guard. “Men, I’ll be gone a couple of months. Roger, I’m leaving you in command. All I want you to do is maintain operations as they are; you’re not to try to expand or get into new ventures. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  By that evening, Rex and his expeditionary force had walked single file for most of the day. When they reached their first camping spot and the men had set up for the night, Rex called in his officers. “We’re going to continue this course until we reach Fort Brazos. Don’t worry, it’s not really a fort—they just call it that. It’s a soft village ripe for the picking. We’ll spread out in a line about a mile across and pick up food and supplies from all of the homes and towns we come across as we go. Organization will be teams of ten men or less. Each of you will be responsible for four teams. Pick your four team leaders and their second in command carefully. Communication will be by runner. The runners will move back and forth along the line. Each night, we’ll camp in the same order, teams spread out. I’ll give you further orders as we go. Be ready to move out at daylight.”