Half Past Midnight (39 page)

I sighed. “Might as well. No reason for the night to be a total loss. Everyone fill your sacks.”

I had just yanked what seemed like my hundredth plant from the ground when Brad came up beside me. “Leeland?”

“Yeah?” I barely glanced up, concentrating on finding another plant in the darkness.

“I don’t think this is garlic.”

I found another plant and pulled it from the moist earth. “What is it, some kind of onion?”

I started to lift it to my face to sniff, but Brad grabbed my arm with a sudden force that stopped me cold. “What?”

“I don’t think they’re onions, either.”

I squinted at the plant I’d just pulled out of the earth. It certainly smelled like garlic, but I knew Brad well enough to listen. “You got my attention. Talk to me.”

“Look.” He held out the plant he had just pulled. The moon had not yet risen, and it was difficult to see what he held—difficult, but not impossible. Attached to the stem, grouped in with a few leaves and tiny berries, was a single, wilted flower, a pale, bell-shaped flower that started alarms in my head.

I had read about those, long ago, while studying in a library for a life I had never thought to lead. My herbal knowledge was sketchy at best, but I still recalled something about white, bell-shaped flowers. “What is it?”

“Lily of the Valley.”

I dropped the plant and wiped my hands on my pants. “Everybody stop!” I hissed. “Put the plants back down!”

But I was too late. Behind me, I heard the sounds of someone retching. A young girl about Megan’s age knelt on her hands and knees, shaking and vomiting. “Check her, Brad!”

I ran through the squad to make sure that everyone knew what was happening. “This isn’t garlic. It’s poisonous! Don’t rub your eyes. Don’t put your fingers in your mouth. Don’t get it on any cuts or scratches. This stuff can kill you!” People dropped the plants like they had found another nest of snakes.

“Drop your sacks and wash your hands in the water.” It was too dark to see their expressions, but no one wasted time with questions. They dumped everything they had immediately. A young kid of about nineteen dropped to his knees and rinsed his mouth in the creek.

Seeing that, I groaned, knowing that he had probably tasted some of the plant as he picked it. That was common enough while foraging, but this time it could prove fatal. I only hoped he hadn’t eaten very much.

“How much would it take to kill someone?” Brad was the one who had realized what we were picking, so I assumed he knew something about the plant.

“Not much, I would guess.” The catch in his voice made me turn.

The girl he held was no longer retching or shaking. Nor was she breathing.

“Damn!” I turned to the squad. “Who else tasted this stuff?”

Only one other hand raised, and it belonged to the kid I’d seen rinsing his mouth.

“How do you feel?”

“O-okay.”

“You tell me if you start feeling anything, all right?”

“Yes, sir.”

I turned to the rest of the squad. “Who knows this girl?”

“I do.” René raised her hand. “Se llama…” She took a deep breath. “She… her name is Rosalyn. Rosalyn Johnson.” Johnson. I vaguely recalled her as a sometime friend of Megan’s who’d occasionally dropped by the house before Megan had begun spending all her free time with Andrew.
Damn.

“Okay. You four,” I indicated four men, “gather up Rosalyn and carry her with us. We’re going back to camp as fast as we can. Anyone who feels the least bit sick, sing out!”

Unfortunately, the damage was done. Less than a mile into the forest, the young man I had spoken with began complaining of severe cramps and a headache. He fell, shivering and cramping, and died along the way. Richard Lister complained of his eyes burning and had to be guided by two others. That slowed us down considerably, and it was more than an hour before we made it back to the main camp. We caused quite a commotion coming in at a run, even more so when people found we were carrying two dead and one wounded.

Someone must have told Jim right away, because he was there almost immediately. “What happened, Lee? Booby trap?”

Panting from the long run, I took a minute to catch my breath. “Lily… of the… Valley.”

“What? Lily of the Valley?”

“Thought… it was… garlic. Two dead.” I hung my head. Two dead. My responsibility. My fault.

Jim must have known what I was thinking and knew better than to try to say anything. He just squeezed my shoulder and handed me an open canteen. I took a quick swig and nearly choked. Now not only was I out of breath, but my eyes were watering as well.

“Jeez! What the hell is that?”

He showed his teeth in a slight smile. “Moonshine. Tastes like mule piss, with the kick thrown in as an afterthought. Don’t drink too much.”

“No problem there.” I handed the canteen back and wiped my eyes. Looking at the tears on the back of my hand, I remembered Richard. I climbed back to my feet and went to see him.

Debra was examining him by the light of the small, shielded fire. As I walked over, I could see how red and puffy the area around his eyes was.

“Can you see my hand?” Debra waved three fingers in front of his face.

He blinked repeatedly and squinted. “Yeah, but my eyes burn like hell!” He blinked several more times, forcing tears from his eyes, and then asked what must have been on everyone’s mind. “Am I gonna go blind? Is this stuff gonna blind me?” He kept his tone controlled and matter-of-fact, but his Adam’s apple bobbed with apprehension.

Debra was silent for a moment, as if considering her answer. Finally, she answered calmly, “I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Lister. There’s a chance that it will.”

Lister’s shoulders slumped, and she hastened to continue. “But I don’t think so. Your eyes are tearing so much because they’re fighting to flush out the sap you got in them. The fact that you can still see after this long, and that your tear ducts are still functioning, seems to indicate that you’re going to be just fine. I want you to keep a warm, wet compress on your eyes tonight and try to get some sleep. We’ll see how you feel in the morning.”

I watched as Richard’s wife lead him away before I turned to Debra. “Is he really going to be all right?”

She sighed. “I have no earthly idea. I’ve never dealt with this before. Mom would have known what to do.” She stopped before following too far down that line of thought. “Anyway, I think he’ll be okay.”

She patted me on the back. “Go get some rest, Lee. I’ll tend your men.”

I nodded and headed for our lean-to. I was almost there when I realized that one person from my squad was missing. Brad Stephenson, the man who had first recognized the plant, had disappeared.

I thought back to the last time I remembered seeing him and realized that it hadn’t been since before our wild run back to camp. Brad was older, granted, but he had gone on raids in the past and never exhibited any tendency to lag behind. The more I thought about it, the more I feared he might have tasted the plant and not mentioned it. That would be just like him.

Now what?

For me, the answer was obvious. The squad leader was responsible for those under his command. I was squad leader and, though I felt I had already made a pretty big mess of things, it was up to me to see it through. If that meant carrying the body of a friend back by myself, then so be it. There was no need to risk anyone else.

Without saying anything to anyone, I slipped back out of camp.

***

Finding the right spot on the bank of the drainage ditch wasn’t difficult. We had left in a hurry and left plenty of signs that we had been there. But I still found no sign of Brad.

In fact, it wasn’t until I crossed the ditch that I picked up his trail. Footprints led out of the ditch and into the town in a direction we hadn’t traveled.
Into town? What the hell is he up to?

I thought through all that had happened, searching my memories for clues. The clue was there, back at the ditch. It was a few moments before it hit me, but once I thought about it, I knew what he was doing.

Breaking into a run, I raced to catch him.

***

I was much too late. We had taken an hour to run through the woods to camp. It had taken forty-five minutes for me to get back to the ditch. That was nearly two hours for Stephenson to pull it off.

That I hadn’t already run into him coming back meant it had either gone bad, or he had gone back some other way. As much as I hoped for the latter, I couldn’t think of any good reason for him to do so.

As I reached the outskirts of USR&D territory, I slowed, taking more care to stick to the shadows. Something was going on, something that had stirred the enemy like a stick in a beehive. Everywhere I went, people were yelling. Some yelled orders, others cursed. Still others screamed in pain and misery. I peered out of the window of an old storefront and witnessed our greatest single victory over Larry’s troops.

Dozens of men lay in the streets around their stewpots. Some were retching and moaning; others were silent and still. Those who had been late to the evening meal had been the lucky ones. The first of their companions had probably begun to react to the poison by then and, when enough of them died, it would have become obvious that the food was the culprit.

I pulled back and whispered through the rest of the town. In all, it looked like Brad had gotten to five of the massive stew pots with an end result of well over three hundred dead. Apparently, the sixth pot was where someone had finally gotten suspicious of the old man bringing garlic to add to the meals. There were no dead there, only angry men ranting over having lost their quarry in the woods.

Some of them were colorful in their descriptions of what they would do to Brad when they caught him, but each word sent my hopes higher. He’d escaped! And from what they were saying, he had been forced to take to the trees on the opposite side of town. That was the reason I hadn’t seen him on my way in.

Brad Stephenson had managed what none of the rest of us would have dared. He had boldly strode into the enemy camp, sabotaged their cooking pots, disabled hundreds of the enemy, and still managed to escape.

It would never have worked if there hadn’t been so many of the enemy, but with nearly three thousand of them in town, there was no way they could all know each other.

“You son of a bitch, Brad.” I grinned. “How the hell can you walk with balls that big?”

***

It was with considerably higher spirits that I headed back to camp. For two hours, I had slipped through town, barely avoiding the enemy on several occasions, yet never truly worried. I was too excited. Brad had done the impossible! Up to now, we had hardly done more than hold our own against Larry’s men. But tonight, Brad had finally done more than simply sting Larry’s troops. He had given us a major victory.

My creeping through the town had shown me just how severe a blow had been delivered. It looked like just over three hundred fifty dead, and at least another hundred incapacitated. I could just imagine the celebration that must be going on back at camp, and I couldn’t wait to join in. Or perhaps Stephenson didn’t know just how successful he had been, having been forced to make a run for it. I couldn’t wait. I grinned at the thought of being able to tell him what he had done. I grinned until my jaws ached.

I grinned until I found Brad with an arrow in his side.

***

He leaned against a tree to the side of the path with his head back, eyes closed. The arrow moved slightly as the old man breathed.

I knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. “Brad? Oh, my God.”

His eyes opened, and his head turned toward me. In the darkness of the woods, it was difficult to make out details, but I could see his chin coated with blood and, when he tried a feeble smile, his teeth were dark as well. I was no doctor, but it looked like the arrow had pierced his lung and, in our present circumstances, that was as good as dead.

“Leeland?” Frothy blood bubbled forth when he spoke. “Hey, boy. I got ’em.” The effort of speaking must have been exhausting because he dropped his head back against the tree and closed his eyes again. For a moment I feared I had arrived just in time to hear his last words, but then he spoke again. “I got ’em.”

I nodded. “You got ‘em good, old man. I counted over three hundred dead. More of them sick.”

His grin returned. “That many? Guess it was worth it, then. Least I’m not gonna die for nothing.”

There was a lump in my throat, and for an instant I was back in the old machine shop in Houston talking to my father once more. “Hey! Who said anything about dying?”

Brad locked his eyes to mine. Those eyes held so much, and even in the dim light I could see through them to the man’s soul. They were tired, and his pain shone through clearly, but mostly they were content. “Don’t kid a kidder, youngster. We both know I’ve had it.”

I shook my head. “I could get you back to camp. We could patch you up.”

He laid his head back once more. “Never give up, do you? Guess that’s why so many folks look up to you.” He took a deep, rattling breath. “But this isn’t the time for it. I need your help, Lee, if you think you can do it.”

Tears ran down my cheeks, and I sniffed. “Anything you want. Name it.”

Brad’s hand went to his belt, and he hissed with pain as the movement shifted the arrow. Then he relaxed and spoke softly. “There’s a knife on my belt. Take it off for me.”

I could see that it was a long blade, and the way he sat had shoved the tip into the soft ground beside him, the handle digging into his side. I struggled with his belt buckle for a moment, taking care not to jostle him as I pulled the long sheath free. “Got it.”

“Look at it. It’s my best one, and I’m real proud of it. Finished it a few days before those bastards hit us.”

I drew the blade free and held it out to examine by the light of the moon. It was a dagger, long and sleek. The blade was about a foot long, made of the fine Damascus steel with which Brad had become so proficient. The handle was a finely polished yellow with streaks of brown—
Bois d’Arc
, one of the hardest woods in North America, definitely the hardest that grew within several hundred miles. “It’s beautiful.”