Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (44 page)

“You’re wrong in that aspect, dearie. I think that she had everything to do with it. Would you have risked everything if she was perhaps thirty years older or maybe sixty pounds heavier? Or a man? I doubt it.” She cackled as she looked back at Beth with a knowing smile. “What would your wife be thinking right about now, Sergeant? I can smell it all over you both. It reeks of adultery and lust and sin.” Beth bowed her head in silent shame. Was it that obvious?

They drove in silence for another twenty minutes while the old car rumbled along at an unimpressive thirty-eight miles per hour. Mary Helen began to clap in glee when the old, underused barracks, until recently anyway, came into view. The small two-story building, in addition to being an armory, at one time, served as the state police barracks. But that was another lifetime ago.

Now, the men housed there weren’t so much taxed with the burden of serving and protecting the people as they were with serving and protecting themselves. Sure, to some degree, they felt they were still working toward the common good, but like many people throughout the ages, absolute power, and all that… And the colonel, for all intents and purposes, was the ultimate power, at least in these parts. He ruled his realm like any good overlord would have in medieval England, with an iron fist.

The sergeant was forcibly removed from the car. It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of him as they dragged him out. Beth was treated with a little more civility, but not much. If not for the appearance of the colonel, the sergeant thought that his life might have ended on the pavement. After what ensued, he looked back and wished it had.

“Ah! So our not-so-triumphant treasonous sergeant returns,” the colonel said as he spat and looked down on the kneeling sergeant. The sergeant swiveled his head to look up at the colonel but the sun was right behind the colonel’s head, making it difficult to see anything but his silhouette.

“I have someone here that’s very eager to see you, O’Bannon,” the colonel half-laughed. The colonel moved to the side a few inches to let the mystery person enter his field of vision. He still couldn’t see, but recognized the halo of hair from a mile away. The sergeant began to openly weep when he realized that his wife was there.

“Why?” she asked softly as she placed her hand on his cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Meg,” he cried as he placed his handcuffed hands over hers. His contact, however, made her withdraw almost as if she’d been snake-bitten.

They were high school sweethearts. Neither of them, to her knowledge, had ever been in a serious relationship other than the one they shared. Through the ups and downs of their lives, they managed to build something decent together. Wasn’t their son testament to that fact?

“They fucked!” The old woman yelled from the car before she began to howl with laughter, rocking back and forth, like a hyena on speed. “They fucked!” she repeated, a little more softly, but still the majority of those present heard it. The hustle and bustle only moments before came to a standstill as the men in the troop watched to see what would happen next.

“Is that true?” Meg cried. The sergeant stared, helplessness etched on his face. “Is that true?” she yelled.

“Meg, I’m so sorry,” he stammered between tears.

Meg brought her hand back up, but this time it wasn’t for a soft caress. Her slap stung the sergeant harder than any bullet ever could. She turned her back and returned to the barracks to gather her belongings and head back home, where her boy would wait for a daddy who would never return.

The colonel waited until Meg had completely vanished into the building. “I always knew you weren’t quite an exact fit for our outfit, Sergeant, but I would never have guessed how far you could have strayed from your country and your family.” The colonel turned on one heel and headed back from whence he came. “Throw them both in the brig,” the colonel added as he stepped through the door.

The sergeant felt a pair of rough hands pick him up off the pavement. Tears streaked his face, giving it a ruddy appearance. Any swagger that the sergeant might have once possessed was now completely drained from him. He walked the walk of a thoroughly defeated man, head bowed while his feet barely rose above the level of the ground.

Beth stumbled as she was shoved in the direction of the barracks. She turned to glare at the man who pushed her. He was a brutish man, not overly large, but he looked powerful.

“Turn around, bitch, and get moving,” he said as he shoved her again. She nearly lost her footing. The cuffs made it difficult to walk in the first place, much worse with someone shoving her. The door to the station began to close as Beth heard the old woman yell out her favorite comment.

“He fucked her!” she yelled again as the wild cackle began anew. The sound of the cell doors closing behind Beth awoke something both primitive and dark from deep within her. It was a fear that mushroomed from her toes to the top of her head. She had never, not even while on the alien ship, felt so completely trapped.

There was no outside light source and the illumination in the cell was supplied by one sixty-watt bulb that hung in the center of the small corridor she had just crossed. From the lighting, she couldn’t even tell if she had the cell to herself; the far end was completely bathed in shadow. The brutish man with the pockmarked face had already closed the door and was headed back up the corridor when Beth called out to him.

“What…What about the cuffs?” she asked as she raised her hands, as if showing him her problem might make it better.

“Eat me, bitch,” he answered without ever turning around.

“Oh, great,” Beth mumbled to herself. “I really have to pee too.” Beth recognized her quandary and it made her smile for a brief moment, but it was a smile nonetheless.

The sergeant found his way into his cell after sustaining some moderate punishment. Nothing had been broken, that thought did little to ease his mind. The men, for the most part, had once been his good friends and to see the brutality and hatred that formed on their faces as they took out their frustration on him was almost more than he could bear.

He had worked through many a natural disaster with the bulk of them, risking their lives together, and now he had betrayed them. He had betrayed the only family he had and for what? A pretty face? Was that it? No! It was more than that! It had to be, right? He had a wife and a son that he knew he would never see again, but still the treachery that these men, HIS men, felt that he had created was the knife that twisted in his side. And what pushed the knife even deeper were the results he had achieved.

The two women whose aid he had galloped toward were in no better shape than if he had done nothing at all. Deb died and Beth would soon. At this point, he only hoped it would be quick for her. There was no telling what the colonel had in mind, for either of them. Colonel Masterson showed up almost as if he knew he was the subject of the sergeant’s thoughts.

“How are you doing, soldier? I hope the accommodations are up to snuff,” the colonel said as he lit his pipe. The pungent smell of sweet hickory wafted through the cell. The sergeant never cared for the smell of that tobacco and right now was no exception.

“I know you didn’t come down here to see how I was doing,” the sergeant said as he righted himself, doing his best not to let the colonel see him wince as he attempted to stand amidst all the bruising and beating that his body had endured.

“I hope my men, haven’t treated you too unfairly,” the colonel added as he watched his pipe smoke drift away. “Why’d you do it, Grady? And please don’t tell me that you threw away everything for a piece of tail.” The colonel had yet to look over at him. The sergeant wrestled with his thoughts, unsure if he should answer the colonel or not; but at that point, he figured why not?  He couldn’t do anything worse than what he'd already done to himself.

“They needed help,” he said bleakly.

“So you wanted to play the knight in shining armor, eh?”

Is the bastard reading my thoughts? “I guess maybe it was something like that, sir.”

Now the colonel did look in his direction, almost as if to say, 'How dare you call me that. You lost that privilege.' But no words were exchanged.

“I had a split second to think, sir.” There it was again, but this time, the colonel put his poker face on and completely ignored the affront. “They were in trouble and, at the time, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I’ve been thinking about all that has happened in the last few days, Colonel, and I can’t say that if it happened again, I would not do the same thing. I honestly think, that I would. Maybe it’s a character flaw on my part. I don’t know, there was something about those girls that compelled me to help them.”

“And what of the second girl?” the colonel interjected.

“She died from her wounds.”

The colonel merely nodded. “And so, what have you gained, Sergeant?” The sergeant could now see why the colonel had risen so far and fast in the officer’s ranks. This man was intuitive to a fault.

“Nothing sir, I have gained nothing. And I have lost everything,” the sergeant said with his head bowed low.

“Your execution will occur two days from now, at dawn,” the colonel stated. The sergeant’s head shot back up. He knew it was coming but it still surprised him.

“Why no trial, sir? We both know the outcome of that avenue, but I still deserve that.”

“You lost your right to that the moment you pulled the trigger, Sergeant. You WILL have your say, but your words, by and large, will fall on deaf ears.” The colonel took one last puff of his pipe and turned to head out.

“Sir, I’m sorry.” The sergeant said as the colonel stopped briefly.

“So am I, Sergeant, so am I,” the colonel said as he resumed his exit.

***

Beth, for the most part, was left alone that day and much of the next. Her only contact with the outside world was the occasional tray of food that was slid under her door. The colonel never bothered to stop in and tell Beth that her fate was to be determined or predetermined in forty-eight hours. He saw no need to waste his time on the civilian woman who cost the lives of two of his men. When Beth’s dinner arrived the second night, she shouted to her delivery person.

“Please let me talk to Sergeant O’Bannon.” She sounded so pathetic, even to herself; it was no act, it was how she felt. Private Monroe had been warned to do nothing with the woman except drop off her meals, but he hated to see anything suffer, much less her.

As a child, Monroe set up a pretty good facility for dealing with strays throughout his neighborhood. If anyone had a bird with a broken wing or a lost cat, Monroe was sure to nurse it back to health or find the previous owner. In many cases, much to his mother’s chagrin, he would keep the animal for himself. He intended to go to veterinarian assistance school after graduation, but never succeeded. Without a father and with his mother barely making ends meet by slinging hash at the local greasy spoon, the money was just not there. The National Guard promised him a GI bill to pay for his schooling. They even offered tuition reimbursement.

He never got the chance to even enroll before the aliens struck, he had never, ever signed up for the crap that was going down now. He killed at least three people in the last raid against the unit, and it had deeply affected him. He always thought he’d been put on the earth for a loftier purpose, to save animals. Actually, to save anything that needed saving. He was not so altruistic that he would risk his life for anybody else’s, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least somehow try to console the girl.

“Ma’am I can’t do that.” Beth was taken aback that somebody, anybody had addressed her. “I can get you a paper and pen, if you want to send him a letter.” Beth nodded her head in ascent.

“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked, pleading.

“I’m not sure,” he lied. Beth saw it in his eyes.

“You can’t let them kill us. We did nothing wrong.” The private’s face drained as he realized she had read his thoughts as if he had verbalized it. When Beth saw his face change, she knew the truth beyond a doubt. Tears silently streamed down her face. Private Monroe had seen that look a hundred times in the faces of the animals he tried to protect. It was shock, plain and simple.

“Listen, there is going to be a trial tomorrow for you. You’ll have the opportunity to have your side heard. And who knows?” he shrugged. They both knew tacitly that she had a better chance of playing with rabid dogs and not getting bit than she did of getting any semblance of a fair trial.

“For me?” The implication was clear; there would be no trial for Sergeant O’Bannon. Beth could hardly believe what was happening.

“I’ll go get the paper and pen,” Private Monroe said as he moved as quickly away from the unsettling conversation as possible. He returned moments later, but Beth had curled herself up on her cot with her back to the bars.

“Ma’am? Do you want the paper?” The private said as he put his hand through the cell. Beth didn’t so much as stir. The private wanted to leave the paper there but that could land him in hot water and he had no desire to get on the wrong side of the colonel, especially right now. He turned to go back to his station. Two more hours of guard duty and one more long, sleepless night, he lamented to himself.

Beth didn’t touch her dinner that night and her dreams seemed to reflect the emptiness inside her. During her fits of sleep, which weren’t interrupted by cold sweats, she dreamed of Deb and Mike. They both had a very ethereal quality. They were bathed in bright white light and seemed so happy together. Love reigned all around them. Deb was smiling like a kid on Christmas morning.