Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (40 page)

Denny paused in his work and watched the grainy picture on the television set.
 
Since the cable went out yesterday, he had been forced to rig up an old antenna he found in his basement in order to get any news from the outside world.

The Internet, like his electricity, had been fluctuating randomly lately and it was increasingly frustrating to find out what was going on in the world outside Salmon Falls.
 

He shook his head as the picture on the screen shifted from a reporter in a surgical mask to the mess in front of a hospital in Chicago.
 
There were bodies in the street, draped in what looked like checkered tablecloths.
 
Men in haz-mat suits slowly made their way down the street collecting bodies.
 
They shoo-ed away the few bystanders who tried to take pictures on cell phones.

“
Another National Guard patrol is approaching, so we’ll have to sign off and move to a new location.
 
This is Mike Thomas, reporting live in Chicago.
”
 
The image switched back to a studio, where a man and a woman, both sporting surgical masks and haggard eyes, picked up where their colleague left off.

“
Thanks, Mike.
 
In other news
−”
 
The anchor paused and looked off camera for a moment.
 
He chuckled ruefully.
 
“
That was a phrase from happier times
.”
 
He cleared his throat.
 
“
As I was saying, the White House is still issuing no official comment on the recent violence and chaos on the West Coast, either.
”

“
We have confirmed with our sister stations in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco, that in fact, North Korean land forces have invaded those areas along the Pacific Coast of the United States
.”
 
The female reporter shook her head.
 
“
Why the government will not acknowledge that we’re at war is beyond me
.”

“The unexplained blackout on communications affecting much of the country west of the Rockies makes it difficult to know one way or another what is going on—let alone casualty figures,”
said the male talking head.
 
“The lists of missing people are starting to grow at an alarming rate.
 
We here in Boise have been inundated with requests from family members, hoping for some news.
 
As part of our continuing effort to support our community in this time of crisis, Channel 12 and all our sister stations will broadcast a list of missing persons, which is now scrolling across the top of your screen.
 
Please, if you see your name, contact your families, right away…
”

Static turned the screen into a picture of snowy signal interference.
 
Denny clicked the volume down, sighed, and returned to his task at hand.

Before him on the dining room table lay his hickory recurve bow and a dozen arrows he had set aside last hunting season.
   
He had a large candle burning directly in front of him.
 
Next to his right leg, he had a bundle of new arrow shafts that he had been saving for winter work.
 

Last winter he had bought a chunk of Port Orford Cedar at a local lumber mill that had been drying for a year.
 
Just a few weeks ago, he had started to mill the lumber into half-inch square billets.
 
Ever so slowly, as a kind of meditation after a long day at school, he would continue to turn the billets into round dowels.
 

He had clamped those rough billets to his workbench and ran his favorite hand plane ever so slowly along the corners.
 
In that way, every
schnick
of the plane, every curl of the aromatic wood that he sliced free, he was gradually turning those square billets into arrow shafts.
 
It had, of course, taken much longer than it would have if he had simply ordered a batch of arrows online, but these were hand-made.
 
These were
his
.
 

Since he had used a well-sharpened smoothing plane, the shafts that lay on the table before him were perfectly smooth—smoother than any sandpaper could have achieved.
 
Now, he mused, his task was to make sure the nascent arrow shafts were straight and true.

Carefully, he rolled one of the new shafts along the length of the table, peering down along the surface to see if there were any high spots.
 
There was a small hump a few millimeters in height around the middle of this particular shaft.

He picked up the shaft while glancing at the static-filled television, and carefully lowered the shaft over the flame of the candle.
 
Working carefully so as to not scorch the wood, he applied pressure with his thumbs and fingers and as the heat of the candle saturated the wood, he bent the shaft in the opposite direction of the crook.

After pulling it away from the flame and letting it cool a minute, he again rolled the shaft on the table.
 
The gap was gone.
 
He smiled.
 
That shaft would be added to the pile by his left foot, ready for fletching and an arrowhead.

The television returned and the screen flickered as he picked up the next shaft.
 
He listened absently while he checked again for a bend in the shaft by sighting along the length as he rolled it on the table.

“—
state of affairs when the President of the United States refuses to admit that our country is under attack
.”

“
Well, I can tell you,
” said a voice clearly coming through a phone system.
 
Denny looked up from the candle and saw a picture of some official in the government on the screen with the caption:
On the Phone, US Secretary of State, Alexandra Stonemyer
.
 

“
I can tell you unequivocally that the support from the World Health Organization is not only most welcome, but most needed.
 
New York, as you know, is being hit hard with this mystery flu.
 
The vaccines that were available during The Great Pandemic just don’t seem to be working—
”

“
Madam Secretary, I thought most of the H5N1 vaccines were lost in the nuclear attack on Atlanta last week?
” asked the female reporter.
 
“
Are you telling me that is
not
the case?
”

“
I’m telling you, Alice
,” the Secretary continued, “
that the French contingent is bringing their own vaccines, equipment, emergency food and even power generators to Queens, an area especially hard-hit.
 
Even in Boston, where our German friends are assembling, the relief is quickly flowing.
 
This crisis is a true example of how the nations of the civilized world can and will help each other in times of need
.”

“
Madam Secretary, what can you tell us about reports of para-troopers landing hundreds of miles from the coast in South Carolina, setting up roadblocks and cordoning off government buildings?
 
We’ve had word that Russian soldiers were threatening American citizens who attempted to contact their state representatives.
 
Can you comment on this?
”

There was a pause on the phone and the screen flickered momentarily in static.
 
Denny hoped it would hold steady for the Secretary of State’s answer.
 

“
I think that the good people of South Carolina are very happy with the help our friends from Russia have provided.
 
Food, medicine, power—
”

“
But these reports of Russian soldiers waving machine guns at
—”

“
Alice, let me finish, please.
 
These reports, I think when it’s all said and done, will be nothing more than the fantasies of some bored people who want to make a name for themselves.
 
It’s utter hogwash.
 
My counterpart in the Russian Federation has assured me, just this morning, that there are no Russian forces outside of Charleston, at this time
.”

“
So you’re denying the multiple reports
—”

“
Of course!
 
There is nothing to worry about.
 
President Barron himself invited the W.H.O. and it’s accompanying security forces to assist us with making this country safe and helping us to fight this
−“

Static returned and killed the transmission.
 
Denny sighed again and turned back to his arrow shafts, his mind troubled.
 
Another shaft finished, he reached for a third, glancing at the television.

The little handheld Garmin Rhino radio/GPS unit his neighbor John had given him two days ago broke squelch: “
You watching TV?
”

Denny picked up the black radio and pushed the transmit button carefully.
 
He had never used this type of two-way radio before—he had always used his cell phone.
 
But lately, cell reception seemed to have vanished—or replaced with a computerized message that said:
Due to unusually high call volume, this network is down.
 
Please try your call again later
.

“Yes, I was.
 
Until I lost the signal again.”

“
I think you’d better come over
.”

Denny looked at the pile of unfinished arrows on the floor.
 
He was about to sigh and make a comment about his Mormon neighbor being paranoid, but then the confrontation with his students flashed back in his mind.
 
The world was changing.
 

Two weeks ago, he would have laughed at John’s urging him to retreat into their bunker.
 
Two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have thought he’d have to put his tomahawk against a high school student’s neck to keep him from killing his elderly neighbor.
 
Two weeks ago, people weren’t dying of some super flu—again.
 

Two weeks ago, the nation wasn’t at war.

“Okay,” he said.
 
The power flickered, causing the TV to shut off, as if to validate the ominous tone of John’s voice.
 

It wasn’t hard to lock up the house and head across the yard.
 
The night that he had confronted Jeb Townsend, Denny had a premonition that the hothead and his father would come looking for retribution.
 
The easiest target was his truck, parked out in the open on the driveway slab.
 
Therefore, the day after the incident, he had pulled his truck around behind the house and backed it up to a back door off the living room.

The truck was currently parked there, next to some big pines along the back of his house and up under a metal, open-enclosure garage roof.
 
It was completely hidden from street.
 

He checked the lock on the front door again and made sure the windows were locked and the curtains were drawn tight in the windows facing the street.
 
Since the power had been going on and off at random for the last few days, he had simply left everything off and unplugged.
 
He hoped that made his house look deserted.
 
Maybe it would encourage Jeb and his friends to look elsewhere for trouble.

Walking back through the kitchen, he paused long enough to shut off the TV, blow out the candle on the table and pick up his tomahawk.
 
Once slipped onto his belt, he picked up the radio, clipped it on the other side of his waist and headed out the back kitchen door.

A plan had been evolving in his head lately, to load up his truck with all the gear he needed and head up into the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains, directly west of his house.
 
It would be a simple thing, he thought as he crossed the yard.
 
Just load up and drive away from the chaos that was enveloping Salmon Falls.

He stepped on a fallen pine tree twig and paused at the loud sound.
 
The snow from the early storm last weekend had long ago melted, but the ground was still cold and beginning its long sleep for the coming winter.
 
Moving quickly, he crossed the side yard and arrived at the back door to the Andertons’ house.

John was there, waiting for him.
 
“We need to talk.”
 
He ushered his neighbor over to the kitchen table.
 
Ruth was busy preparing a meal from what looked like half a dozen cookbooks spread out on the counter.

“Hello, Denny!” she said with a bright smile and came across the room to smother him in a grandmotherly hug.
 
“I’m just fixing an early supper.
 
Won’t you join us?”

Before Denny could do anything but smile, she turned, nodding and humming to herself.
 
“Of
course
you will.
 
I’m making my world famous kitchen sink chili and cornbread!”

Denny sat down in the proffered chair and accepted a glass of iced tea.
 
He raised an eyebrow at John.
 
“It’s because she puts everything in it but the kitchen sink,” the old man laughed.
 
“It’s a ritual she goes through.
 
Every time there’s a blizzard, ice storm, or baby born.
 
She makes a
huge
batch of this chili, using everything she can get her hands on—“

“That’s
right
,” she said nodding her plump, smiling face.
 
Her hair was silver-gray and coiled neatly in a tight, proper-looking bun on the back of her head.
 
The laugh-lines around her eyes made her look like an off-duty Mrs. Claus, Denny thought, hiding a smile.