Fifty Years of Peace (Abrupt Dissent Series) (5 page)

“It’s delicious,” she said, but in truth she barely noticed it. Her thoughts had turned back to the bombing.

“All right miss. Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?” Grandpa asked.

She stared out the kitchen window but couldn’t see anything beyond the oil lamp’s glow.

“Grandpa what happened? Why did we go to war?”

He set down his fork and knife, then took one of his thick fingers and played with the lamp’s wick key. His voice sounded sad when he finally responded.

“I’ve told you I’m not going to talk about the war with you. It was three generations ago and we are behind it now. You post-threes make your own way. You don’t need us pre-wars weighing down your hearts and minds.”

“But it’s important Grandpa! There was a bombing today! I could have easily been killed and I don’t even know why. I don’t know why the war started way back when, and I don’t know why anyone would want to bomb the stage or kill the assemblyman… and the reason I don’t know any of this, is because you, and my teachers, and everyone else is either unwilling to tell me or is in the same boat I’m in and doesn’t have a clue what happened!”

“Jenny…”

“If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to share it with anyone?”

“Of course Jenny, we’re family.”

“I saw who bombed the stage. It was a boy, not much older than me who called himself George Washington. I think he wanted to kill the assemblyman.”

Her grandfather sucked in a breath. He stood to peer out the window, and then checked the front and back doors before returning to the kitchen table.

“Does anyone else know about this?” he asked.

“Yes, Jacob does.”

“The mayor’s clerk?”

“He saw George and I come out from backstage. I followed George because I thought he’d been stealing.”

“Oh Jenny...” He sat down next to her and held her hand, rocking back and forth. In the lamplight, he seemed even more aged, the spots along his scalp puckering his skin and what remained of his gossamer hair in the dim light.

“What do I do Grandpa?”

“What you do is tell the truth. We’re going to go back to the mayor first thing tomorrow and you’re going to tell him what happened. He can’t know that you lied Jenny.”

Her grandfather’s hand was warm in hers, and she traced the lighter scars and knots of his old skin with her index finger.

“Grandpa, I didn’t tell them because I don’t believe what everyone says about why the war started. It doesn’t make sense that we were one country and then fought each other, and that so many people died.”

“No it doesn’t Jenny…”

“How could we have just one day run out of food when there was so much? I don’t even know what happened to my parents. All I have is you, and you won’t talk to me!”

“Jenny!”

“No! I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being treated like a child. I’m not someone you have to protect any more. I took the cheese to the market and I did that all by myself because you can’t even go because you’re afraid, and you won’t tell me why. If you won’t tell me what really happened so I can make my own choices then I don’t want to talk to you!”

With that, she tore her hand from his and stormed up to her room, leaving him alone in the flickering glow of his hurricane lamp.

“Is that right?” Assemblyman Arnold combed his long fingers through his beard.

“That’s right,” the tracker said, “three of them on the bridge two nights ago.”

“And you didn’t think it pertinent to inform me that there might be spies at the festival?”

“With due respect to your position within our government and all sir, those were not my orders. I’m not ever supposed to be seen. I technically don’t exist, and it would have been a compromise of mission security if I’d approached you.”

“The Assembly is going to hear about this,” Arnold said. “I should have you arrested and sent back immediately.”

“But you won’t.”

“Don’t talk back to me!” Arnold burst out.

“I’m the only one that knows what the kid looks like.”

“You don’t even know it was him.”

“No, but I’d say the odds are pretty good.”

Arnold considered this tracker dressed in hunting camouflage. The man’s muddied rucksack rested in the trailer’s corner along with the sheath that carried his pre-war rifle. He wore a knife and pistol at his waist with another knife in his boot that he’d refused to relinquish before coming into the trailer. He needed this man, but he didn’t have to like him.

“I want to make one thing clear to you, the President Hickock himself has put you under my authority, and that means you will show me the proper respect.”

“Of course sir, my apologies,” the man smiled, showing teeth stained from poor care.

“Good. Now I want you to find this boy, and when you do, I want you to help me prove the United States did this to the people. That is your new priority.”

“Understood sir. There’s just one more thing I’d like to ask...”

Arnold glared at Dillon.

“Go ahead.”

“If I may Assemblyman, why would they make you a target? If we can prove the United States tried to kill you, we’d have every right to go to war, but no one wants that. There isn’t something else going on that your faithful servant here should know about, is there?”

Arnold’s heavy eyebrows shadowed his eyes.

“Even if there was, it would certainly be out of your pay grade. Now come with me.”

***

“I’m not going to take it off,” Doc Stinson called to the mayor. “Would you quit your whining?”

Mayor Trestle couldn’t see past the towel that two of the hospital residents had wadded over his knee while the doctor pulled shrapnel from his leg. All he felt was the scream of nerves that had been on fire all day finally breaking through his endurance.

“Am I going to be able to walk?”

“I think so. The worst of them…”

The mayor let out a bloodcurdling scream as a dagger of pain flew up to his hip.

“The worst of the fragments were in your bone,” the doctor said as he held up a black shard of metal glistening with blood, “but they didn’t nick any major blood vessels, and the bone will grow back. We’ll get you bandaged up and you should heal just fine.”

Doc Stinson dropped the last shard into a pan, and pulled off his mask while his residents bathed the wound in alcohol and packed it with gauze.

“You were damn lucky Jim.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“And it was real decent of you to wait to be the last one I tended to. I know how much that leg must be hurting.”

“I remember something called Oxycodone as a kid. Get me some of that?”

“Ha! One day maybe. Best I can do for you right now is homemade aspirin...”

“No, no that’s fine,” he said. “Give what you got to the others. I’ll manage.” The residents finished his bandages, and he swung himself into a seated position on the table.

“Oh and Jim,” Doc Stinson smiled as he handed his old friend a wooden crutch, “for the road.”

“You’re going to make me into an old man whether I like it or not,” the mayor said. He slipped off the operating room’s table and onto his good leg. His wounded leg screamed in pain when he put weight on it, so he gritted his teeth and shifted his weight onto the crutch.

“One more thing,” the doctor said as the residents left them alone in the operating room.

“Go ahead.”

“Jim, you know whoever did this was probably targeting that assemblyman.”

“I do.”

“That’s going to bring a whole lot of heat here. We’ve been doing well on our own
, very well.”

“Isn’t that the truth, but we’ll have to deal with it. We didn’t do anything wrong here, we just need to help the government as much as we can.”

The mayor gathered his jacket and crutched to the door that led back to the waiting room. His secretaries and aides jumped up when they saw him, breaking into smiles as they watched him fumble with his crutch.

“Make way, make way,” Trestle said, “Mayor Trestle is coming through.” He was enduring well wishes and hugs when the doors to the hospital opened and a familiar shape filed through.

“Mr. Mayor!” Linden called. “How are you holding up?”

“Oh I’m all right, no real damage. I still have two legs!”

The big assemblyman scanned the room while several of his Texans and a lean man dressed in camouflage filed in behind him.

“May we speak privately?” Linden asked.

Trestle nodded, waving to the well-wishers as they filed outside.

“My aides will stay,” he said. “They can hear anything your men can.”

“That’s fine. What have your men found in their questioning?”

“Jacob, can you fill me in?”

“No good leads Mayor. There were no unrecognized visitors that we could trace, but sir…”

“I’ve got your lead Mr. Mayor,” the assemblyman interrupted. He turned to a man on his left who the mayor noticed was even more heavily armed than the Texans. “Go ahead Dillon.”

“I’m sorry,” the mayor asked, “but who’s this?”

Linden squinted at the mayor, measuring him.

“I’m about to tell you something in confidence Mr. Mayor, and I need it to stay that way. An attack on me is a matter of National Security.”

“Understood Assemblyman.”

“Good. Lieutenant Dillon here is a tracker. He and many others like him have been assigned to patrol the borders of the New States to serve as our early warning system in case the United States, or anyone else, gets any ideas that would lead to a renewing of hostilities.”

“You’re the canary in the coal mine,” the mayor said.

“Except we generally aren’t the ones that do the dying,” Dillon answered.

“Two nights ago, the lieutenant here engaged three hostiles crossing the border at Rockfish Gap. He believes two have been incapacitated, but the third, a boy, escaped.”

“Forgive me, but how do we know they were hostile?” the mayor asked.

“In my experience,” Dillon answered, “people crossing a border at midnight are not the pure of heart.”

“So you think the boy is our prime suspect.”

“Absolutely,” the assemblyman said. “Lieutenant Dillon has provided us with enough to make a sketch of the suspect, and we’d like to post these flyers all over town.”

One of the Texans handed the sketch to Mayor Trestle. He saw a boy, maybe 17, with a sharp nose and early stubble on his wide cheeks. The boy’s eyes seemed clear, uncaring below a tangle of brown hair. The mayor handed the paper to an aide.

“Of course,” he said. “anything to help.”

“And I’m also going to need to ask you to dedicate resources to the search. Our assumption is that the boy will head back east immediately. Dillon will explore that contingency, but I’d like to ask for your sheriff to...”

“Sir,” Jacob called. The assemblyman’s eyes widened, worrying the mayor. Jacob was still young, and didn’t understand the intricacies of authority in situations like this.

“Who is this?” Linden asked the mayor.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I saw this boy yesterday,” Jacob said.

“Where? With who?”

“He was with Jenny Williams. She asked me to watch her stall for a minute and he came back with her.”

“You left that out of your report son?” the assemblyman said. His voice had lowered, entering a dangerous area.

“Jacob what is going on?” Mayor Trestle asked.

“Sir, I… I don’t know… I saw her, I asked her for her statement at the festival gate, but she lied to me. She said she hadn’t seen anyone. I was going to ask you what to do in private.”

“Well we know now,” the assemblyman said. “Was this the girl from the Two Star Ranch?”

“Yes sir,” Mayor Trestle answered. “About four hours outside town on horse.”

“It’s a shame,” Linden said, “I’d thought about recommending them as a national supplier. We leave for the ranch at first light.”