Fourth quadrant the wyom.., p.33
Fourth Quadrant: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book Two,
p.33
He glances around. “Besides, I think they wasted enough meds on you here. They probably want your skinny ass gone so they can put someone in this bed who isn’t such a pain.”
“You and Mike are dead.”
“Yeah, sis. I mean, that’s the whole point, right?” Odd shadows dance across his face when one of the fluorescent lights flickers.
“Well, for what it’s worth…” He lifts my hand and gives my fingers a quick kiss before he lowers it to the bed again. “I love you. But don’t make more of that than it is.”
“I love you, too, big brother.”
I reach out for his hand, desperate to clasp it to my breast. But when I blink and clear my eyes, the room swims into focus.
There is no wheelchair beside my bed. Just the moveable tray on which one of those hospital water glasses with an oversized straw rests.
Vinich? Tyrell? Jim?
They seemed so real.
Or am I just that close to dead myself?
I reach out and press the nurse’s call button.
When the tall balding guy in his early forties wearing scrubs comes hustling in the door, I tell him in my gravelly voice, “I need to get a message to Captain Ragnovich. Tell him I’ll take the governor’s offer.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Before the Collapse—and with full Wyoming tongue-in-cheek-humor—it was called the “Wyoming Air Force”. The state owned and operated two corporate jets and a couple of prop-driven planes for conducting official state business. But, as with the helicopters and C-130s that Agar “nationalized”, the future of the aircraft was a foregone conclusion: They could only fly until a lack of spare parts grounded them forever. That Agar was flying to Cody demonstrated just how seriously he took Edgewater and his power base in the Bighorn Basin.
And I was able to hop a ride.
Wrapped in one of Ragnovich’s cast-off old coats, Lauren sat fully reclined in the Cessna Citation Encore’s lush leather seat. She’d been wheeled from the hospital, taken in an ambulance to the airport, and painfully transferred to the corporate jet’s cabin.
Didn’t matter that she’d been given a dose of ever-more-rare painkiller. It still hurt like blazes.
Watching the world pass by through her window was a revelation. Everything was familiar and soothing. Like the collapse had never happened. She could have set the world back to before that terrible Friday in June as she stared down from twenty-seven-thousand feet. That was the great thing about flying over Wyoming, to look down was to see the geological bones of the state.
Enjoy it. You’ll never view the world like this again.
Thinking back, the last time she’d been on a plane was flying back from Baltimore. From that horrible final meeting with her parents: the general and her mother. Not mom and dad. Which showed how screwed up her personal life had become after Jim’s death. And, yeah, most of it had been her fault.
We always take it out on the ones we love.
She grunted, which sent a worse stitch of pain through her healing ribs.
Hell of a legacy her family had left her. No chance to heal that rift now.
They’re dead. Just like Jim, Mike, Trevor, Randy, and all those people I shot down on The Line.
To the west, the jagged peaks of the Wind River Mountains rose against a red-brown sky. A glistening coat of fresh snow had fallen in the high country, blanketing the slopes and trailing like ragged scarves down the flanks of the mountains. Temperatures for the past few days had been unseasonably cold for the first of July.
She wondered if the nuclear explosions and burning cities had changed the weather patterns. Was nuclear winter descending upon them? If so, the world was about to get much colder. They’d lose days or weeks of growing season. Crops wouldn’t have enough time to mature. How could Wyoming farmers and ranchers produce enough to feed people?
And that was probably the least of their worries.
She was dwelling on that when Governor Agar made his way up from where he’d been in the rear, talking with several of his staff. Like usual, the governor was wearing his dandy three-piece suit. Mirror-polished black dress shoes clad his feet.
Somehow, she always thought the Governor of Wyoming should wear a vest, O’Farrell western hat with a high crease and expensive Lucchese boots. Agar always looked like he’d just stepped off Fifth Avenue.
The man seated himself across from Lauren and straightened his tie. Glancing her way, he asked, “How are you doing?”
She gave him a wry smile. “Chest is tight. Hurts.”
“I read the reports. The miracle is that you’re alive. While they got most of the metal out, they left a few of the smaller pieces as souvenirs. I’m told the scar will be quite the conversation piece. And Dr. Blagovich was able to repair your eardrums. Said you’d have been deaf as a stone otherwise.”
“Don’t know how I’ll ever pay the bill.”
“Wyoming will cover it.” His thin lips bent. “Think it through, Ms. Davis. Everything you’ve done. Buffalo Camp. The Chinese pilot. Marsy Ranch. Now you’ve survived The Line to take the fight for civilization to the Bighorn Basin.”
She gave an uncomfortable nod. “Whatever. Listen, I really appreciate the ride. Would have been a bitch in a car or truck.”
Agar’s intent gaze remained laser intense. “You still don’t have any idea, do you, Ms. Davis?”
“Idea? About what?”
“About what you mean to the state. To the people on The Line. To our future?”
She glanced out at the blue waters of Boysen Reservoir and the narrow cleft that was Wind River Canyon. Beyond, the Owl Creek Mountains rose in rugged humps before surrendering to the jagged and snow-capped summits of the Absarokas farther west. Looked like the top of the world as one soaring peak gave way to the next only to vanish into the distance that was Yellowstone.
What I mean?
Lauren could see now. Really see. Her eyes no longer observed the smooth outsides of things, for she knew them to be a sham, an illusion. She saw only the insides. The dark sharp edges that plunged to the center of the earth. All the questions that had once brought her such wonder in college classes had evaporated into the thin air of terror, forcing her to dwell among the shadows and splinters. Forcing her to live the answers.
“I’m nothing more than a wounded and broken waste of meat, Governor. Nothing I did was smart, brave, or clever. Every mess I got into was because I didn’t think, just reacted.”
“Isn’t that all any of us do in a crisis?”
She stared hotly back into his dark eyes. “The only thing I wanted was to stop the pain. If booze wouldn’t do it, maybe a bullet would.”
Agar nodded thoughtfully. “You and me, Ms. Davis.” He looked down at his hand. Flexed the fingers, frowning as if amazed at how they worked. “We both have blood under our fingernails and know how much that costs. In the process, we have both come to symbolize people that we’re not in our hearts. Hell of a price to pay, isn’t it?”
“How so, sir?”
“The choices, Ms. Davis. The things we did on the Fourth Quadrant. You looked people in the eye, turned them back from The Line. But ultimately, it was my responsibility. My order. Am I a monster, for condemning all those people? Sending them back south into the hell that became Colorado? Or am I the only hope for saving just a little sliver of civilization?”
He shot her a questioning look. “Who am I? A savior, or a monster? Or both at once?”
“Like that day at the executions at Frontier Park?”
“Just taking ultimate responsibility.”
“So, you’re flying special up to Cody to put a bullet into Director Edgewater’s brain?”
Agar, looking at his hand again, nodded. “Our mutual friends, the Tappans, have caught him red-handed. Oh, he’ll have a trial, tell his side of it. I want that on the record. In his own words. But just because we’re entering an age of savagery, doesn’t mean we have to promote the practice beyond what it takes for our survival.”
“When they were loading me on the plane I heard Edgewater was taking girls and young women. Made them sex slaves.”
“He did. And if they didn’t satisfy, he shot them in the head and buried them in unmarked graves. He’s had people ‘disappeared’ and put others in a concentration camp. Looted four counties.” He glanced at her. “So, tell me. What’s your call?”
She winced at the pain in her lungs. “I’d put him down, sir.”
Agar nodded. “Ms. Davis. I know you’ll be in the Park County Medical Center for a while yet, and then the Tappans want you to recover on their ranch. But should you decide to come back to Cheyenne, you have a place there. In my administration. I want you to know that.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “As a symbol?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Of course. Isn’t that all that any of us are these days?”
RESOLUTION
This was discharge day. Lauren sat on the edge of the bed. She’d dressed in her last pair of jeans; her other pair having been too torn and blood-stained from the fighting on Marsy Ranch. After that she had her riding pants, the shredded remains of her Ralley jacket, and couple of pairs of panties, two bras, and a sweatshirt. Just another reminder that the end of civilization was hard on clothes.
The good news was that Cody had been stocked with T-shirts, sweatshirts, and western wear before the collapse. Local businesses had been expecting a booming tourist trade. The town was awash in clothing. Finding a new wardrobe was going to be a piece of cake, as long as the wearer didn’t mind all the Yellowstone park and buffalo images that advertised the “Been there, Done that, Got the T-shirt” tourist image.
Her motorcycle helmet had vanished along the way, although word was that Old Bill Tappan had brought her KTM back from Cheyenne after his last trip down to the capital for meetings with Agar.
She was tired of hospitals. Tired of the owl-eyed looks some of the staff, and too many of the patients gave her.
Turned out that being “a symbol” really sucked the big one.
“You look like shit, Davis,” a pinched voice called from the hall.
Lauren glanced up from where she’d been studying her scuffed and bloodstained riding boots. Breeze stood in the door. Ultimate Western woman, she wore a flat-brimmed western hat, long-sleeved red shirt, fitted Levi’s, and dusty western boots: the pointed kind with high riding heels. Her dark-brown hair was clipped in a ponytail, and those brown-ringed amber eyes were taking Lauren’s measure.
“You ought to feel it on the inside.” Lauren tried to smile, felt it fall apart. God, she was tired.
Breeze walked over, glanced down at the boogie bag. “That’s all of your gear?”
“Not much to show for, is it?” Lauren eased down from the bed, took a breath to steady herself.
Breeze was right there, offering an arm and asking, “You all right?”
“Just gotta take it slow. Did you know those lazy surgeons down in Cheyenne left little pieces of metal inside me?”
“Serves you right for sticking around to fight when you could have run off with Tiff.”
“Aw, I just wanted to be the first person on The Line to blow up a JLTV. You know. I never could turn down a challenge. How far do I have to walk?”
“Brandon’s rounding up a wheelchair. Shanteel’s got the truck out front.”
“Who’s Shanteel?”
“Brandon’s wife.”
“Wife?” She shot a sidelong look at Breeze. “Some buckle bunny finally landed the rodeo Romeo?”
Breeze continued giving her that eerie stare. “Uh, that woman’s anything but a buckle bunny. Lot of stuff’s happened.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.” Lauren saw the flint-like hardness behind her eyes. “Heard you had a pretty tough time taking down Edgewater.” She tilted her head toward the door. “Laying here, you hear things. Not everyone’s happy you took the son of a bitch out.”
“People died,” Breeze whispered, her eyes getting that haunted look.
“You sure this is okay? I mean, you and your family have enough—”
“Shut the fuck up, Lauren.” Breeze’s smile flashed for the briefest of moments. “We’re still sisters. And Mom’s looking forward to seeing you. Like you, she’s healing. Says she looks forward to sharing the porch with you. According to her, watching alfalfa grow is a hell of a lot better than being dead.” Then the haunted look was back.
“What?” Lauren asked as Breeze went distant.
“Old Thomas Star had me do a vision quest. Everything we’ve done, Lauren, there’s more to come. Says we’re warriors for the new age.”
“Well…screw that.”
“Yeah.” Breeze smiled, put her arm around Lauren’s shoulder. “Come on. At Tappan ranch, we’re always looking for another new-age warrior.”
Breeze reached down, swinging the heavy boogie bag up with one arm. “Now, where the hell is that no-good little brother of mine? The kid can’t handle a simple job like finding a wheelchair.”
“He’s a twin. Only, like, twenty seconds younger than you.”
“Yeah, but we’re in a hurry. They’re cooking steaks down at the ranch in celebration of your arrival.”
“Then, come on. I’m not waiting,” Lauren declared. What the hell were knitting ribs and incisions when steaks were cooking?
With Breeze balancing the boogie bag on one shoulder, and steadying Lauren as they went, they headed for the door.
Steaks? Damn straight!
A LOOK AT: FRACTURE EVENT
Award-winning archaeologists and New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear bring us a gripping disaster thriller.
The seas flood their banks. Storms devastate entire continents. Fires envelop the world in darkness. The collapse begins…
Anthropologist Anika French makes an explosive discovery: due to climate change, our world is threatened with collapse in just a few years, and humanity will perish. Anika’s committee chair published her work under his own name, now powerful people will do anything to obtain Anika’s statistical program for their own use.
With murder, kidnapping, extortion, and assassination on every side, Dr. Maureen Cole, a team of specialists, and bodyguard Skip Murphy will do everything in their power to keep Anika safe as they struggle with the implications of Anika’s work. For once the “fracture event” occurs, Anika’s model predicts the end of the world – and dark powers are already testing the model with devastating results.
Ultimately, it will be up to Skip, Maureen, and Anika as a deadly showdown in the Alps will determine who will profit from the destruction of civilization.
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W. Michael Gear
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. Michael Gear is the New York Times and international bestselling author of over fifty-eight novels, many of them co-authored with Kathleen O'Neal Gear.
With seventeen million copies of his work in print he is best known for the “People” series of novels written about North American Archaeology. His work has been translated into at least 29 languages. Michael has a master’s degree in Anthropology, specialized in physical anthropology and forensics, and has worked as an archaeologist for over forty years.
His published work ranges in genre from prehistory, science fiction, mystery, historical, genetic thriller, and western. For twenty-eight years he and Kathleen have raised North American bison at Red Canyon Ranch and won the coveted National Producer of the Year award from the National Bison Association in 2004 and 2009. They have published over 200 articles on bison genetics, management, and history, as well as articles on writing, anthropology, historic preservation, resource utilization, and a host of other topics.
The Gears live in Cody, Wyoming, where W. Michael Gear enjoys large-caliber rifles, long-distance motorcycle touring, and the richest, darkest stout he can find.
W. Michael Gear, Fourth Quadrant: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book Two
