Lady Grace & the War for a New World (Earth's End Book 2) (21 page)

33

Sam looked over his shoulder as he walked away from the container where the lady was talking to the goldies. James had shaved off all of her hair. He put paint on her face around her eyes and on her cheeks. She wore a blue gown of soft stuff cut so low that he didn’t want any other man to see her.

The others had said, “Oh, you look beautiful.”

She did. Too beautiful. When he had been near the goldies when Ellie was sick, Sam didn’t like them. Part of it was that he had not been out of the underground very long. Part of it was
them
. He experienced them the way he did everything, from the inside. He knew all of them. Nuances and subtle shadings. They were too powerful. He couldn’t understand their thinking or the way their souls worked. He didn’t think it possible to make a good bargain with them, but his new family needed their help.

He didn’t want to listen to what the lady said or see her shining in front of the cameras, so he walked to the end of the cliff. He stood, looking toward the underground shelter. The storm continued to rage. The Bigs hadn’t gotten the general’s weapons out. Yet.

After a while, he sat down with his legs crossed, a safe distance from the ledge. It still felt dangerous to him. It was dangerous. Sam picked up pebbles and threw them over the edge, listening to them bounce when they hit the rock below.

“Sam?”

He jumped at the soft voice. Ellie could walk even more quietly than he did.

“Yeah, Ellie?”

“Talk, Sam?”

“Sure, Ellie. What about?” He knew Ellie from holding her when she was sick. Which was to say, he knew her as well as another person possibly could. She was good and kind and fine all the way through.

“Tell about babies, Sam. What their names? How old? Any sick?” She came around and sat in front of him, her back so close to the edge that it made his stomach churn. She was unconcerned.

“OK, Ellie, ah’ll tell ye.” He immediately went into the village dialect. Ellie was the only one who’d asked about the children specifically, as individuals. And she’d used the Voice to make sure that the others saved them. She cared about them most.

“Bobby’s th’ oldest. He’s this many.” He held his fingers out once, and then held up just two.

“Twelve.”

“Yeah. He’s the biggest. He’s an Arthur and has some …” He recited Bobby’s genealogy, as would be proper in any discussion of children among those underground, or in the village in the old days. Sam went through all the other kids, describing them and giving their names and lineages. “Th’ youngest is Winnie. She’s …” He held up one finger. “One.” He smiled. He knew that number. “She’s a bonny thing, and smart. She looks small, Ellie. They’re all wha’ ye’d call sick, Ellie. Ev’ry one of ‘em. But it’s na’ sumthin’ to stew over. They need this,” he waved his arm, indicating the outdoors and air. “They need food and a place to play. They’ll be fine. Fair an’ fine.”

She laid her hand on his knee. “No is problem, Sam. Babies can be sick, no care. Want babies. They want mother?”

“They want a mother more ‘n anythin’, Ellie. Tha’s wha’ they need. Bein’ held and loved. They need you.”

Strangely, Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. They weren’t tears of happiness. Something was going on with her. She looked different; her eyes were larger. She seemed sharper, too, as though she might attack.

“You good man, Sam. You take care babies.” She was silent for a while. “You want to know me like Sam Baahuhd? Hold hands and know?”

“All right,” he replied cautiously. She had known his ancestor and touched him. What would she think when she knew that Sam Baahuhd was alive in him, along with 105 generations of Baahuhds? He was the keeper of the ancestors.

Ellie stretched her hands out and took Sam’s.

He touched her and they joined. She was different than the Ellie he had held when she was sick. Foreign. Getting more foreign. Losing the vestiges of humanity she bore. Becoming something else. But still totally good.

And then he knew. Ellie was saying good-bye.

Sam Baahuhd reared up inside him and grasped Ellie’s hands. “Yer a fair an’ fine lass,” he said. “As fine as a butterfly or a humming bee. Ye’ll be remembered, lass. For generations, they’ll sing yer name. Ah’m so glad ah knew ye.”

The rest was beyond words. He knew Ellie and Ellie knew him, more than the lady did, maybe.

He sat in a trance.

“Good-bye, good Sam. I go now. You take care babies. Take care Jeremy. Use Voice, Sam. No be afraid.”

When he opened his eyes, she was gone.

34

“OK, Wes. We’ll do the shot as rehearsed,” Kim Rogers, the director, sat beside the camera, an umbrella shading her command chair, bullhorn in hand. The rest of the crew stood where their jobs put them. “The crane with the camera is on the hill. It will catch you from above. The copters are in place. The logging truck is rolling in this direction.”

The shot took place in a particularly scenic area of Will Duane’s ranch. A hill sloped down from Wes’s right. Out of sight, the logging road curved around it and sloped downward. The knoll was thick with timber, which broke into meadowlands below the road. Sunlight illuminated the scene.

“You’re going to do exactly as we discussed, Wes. You’ll hit the curve at fifty, no more, and pull to your right out of sight. We’ll do the rest with a computer. No adding thrills or speed. You are too valuable to risk. This is a tough shot, as you know.”

Wes knew the scene. His character rode around the corner with the bad guy in hot pursuit. A logging truck was coming up the other way. In the film, he was supposed to swerve, throw the bike sideways, slide under the truck, and escape. The bad guy got creamed by the truck. Bad guy number one. There were dozens of them in the film. The actual shot simply required him to ride the bike around the curve. The stunt would be completed in the computer lab.

“I promise, strictly to contract, no changes,” Wes said to Kim. No fun. The director’s assistant yelled, “Action.” Wes put on his helmet. He was in a form-fitting black biker’s suit with a black racing helmet. He was riding a hot bike. Hell of a hot bike. This shot was a total waste of a bike like that.

Wes gunned it. OK, he had an attitude problem. The speedometer said seventy, and he was still putting on speed. He knew they were filming, because Kim wouldn’t waste the shot. She’d scream at him afterward. So what?

He shot over the hill. There was the logging truck. He was exactly where he was supposed to be. He swerved to the left, swinging the cycle’s rear tire toward the truck. Gravel spun from under its wheels. He leaned to the right, gunning it.

Wesley found himself flying through the air, bent forward in the same position he’d had on the racing bike, hands out in front like they were on the handlebars. But the bike was gone. He tipped forward and skidded on the top of his helmet, then his helmet and the backs of his gloved wrists. The smell of burning plastic and leather filled the air. He stopped when he hit a stone wall, upside down. He didn’t move.

Bud Creeman walked into the men’s room of the main barn at Will’s Montana ranch. He hated being filmed. Wes gloried in it, but Bud knew he’d spend a half-hour sitting on the can afterward, until his guts settled down. He loved the bathroom in the barn. Like everything on Will’s estate, it was oversized and over the top. He could live in this bathroom very happily. He pulled out the latest issue of
Reined Horse Journal
and lightened up.

Moments later and much refreshed, he opened the door and stepped into brilliant sunlight. He looked around. He was standing on a rock ledge, with no barn in sight. No ranch anywhere. Just rock.

“Bud,” Wesley ran up to him and whispered, “where are we?”

He looked around and saw a bald woman in a black commando outfit advancing on them with an automatic machine gun.

He raised a hand. “Hi, there. We’re just … standing here.”

“Certainly, no problem. I’m packing the ordnance.
Jeremy
, can you get Bud a saddle?” She called toward a storage container sitting a short distance from them. “He’ll be out in a minute. I’ll leave you with my son, Mr. Creeman.” She walked away.

“How did she know your name?” Wes whispered.

“I don’t know. Where are we?” Bud asked.

“I don’t know. I was on a motorcycle doing a shot at Will’s. Look at my wrists.” Wes held them out. They were badly abraded. “Good thing I had gloves on. Shit.”

Bud put his hands on Wes’s wrists, healing them. “There, is that better? Good thing you got me around.”

“Yeah, but where is this?” They were huddled at one end of a massive rock shelf. More rock formed a vast dome overhead. Two huge cargo containers sat a few yards away. A gigantic pile of pieces of metal and other junk sat in the middle. The hunks looked like they came off a space station.

“This cave could be the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde in Colorado,” Wes continued. “Or the Gila Cliff Dwellings. And that valley out there looks like Santa Ynez Valley in California. I just bought a weekend place there. That over there, where that thunderstorm is … I don’t know where that is. I’ve never seen a thunderstorm centered on a particular spot. And there’s a herd of wild horses beneath us.”

Bud looked over the cliff edge. “Sure is. Who is
that
?”

A bad-ass little girl, who looked about half wasp, sat on the edge of the cliff, glaring at them. A pile of raw fish was next to her.

“Hi, there! We’re just stopping by.”

She jumped off the edge and buzzed away. She could fly.

“Did you see that?”

“Yes. Why does that woman have a machine gun?” He turned around and watched the woman who had met them.

She handed some guns to a couple of guys and then walked over to them, “I’m Lady Grace. Welcome to our home.”

“Howdy. I’m Elmer Fudd and this is Hopalong Cassidy.” Wesley looked at her through narrowed eyes. “What is this? Why are we here? What are you doing? And put down that gun.”

Bud also stared. “That goes for me, too. I think it’s time for us to go home. My wife’s making pot roast tonight.”

“Yes, we definitely need to go,” she said. “We’re behind schedule. Would you mind breaking those horses for us? We have several beginners, so we need them to be very gentle.”

“I don’t break horses,” Bud said.

“I know, you put them under saddle. We’ll explain the whole thing as we travel. Come now, go down the ladder and get to work.”

“Look, I’m under contract. I can’t work for anyone but Will Duane. That’s it.”

She leveled the gun at them. “Get down the ladder and start with the horses. We need to leave before dark.”

“How many do you want trained?”

“All of them. We have to bring supplies and may have wounded to care for and take home. We need to load all of that.” She pointed to an enormous pile of stuff at the bottom of the cliff.

“Are you crazy? We can’t possibly load all that on green-broke horses. That’s like a whole movie set you’ve got out there,” Wes squawked.

She came closer. “I don’t need to get this close. I can render you null and void a hundred yards away. Not to mention your contract with Will Duane.”

Bud and Wes climbed down the ladder.

“Do you need any help?” Lena ran to the edge. “I used to help my grandpa with horses and mules.”

“No, ma’am. We’re used to doing it alone. Thank you, though.” Bud tipped his hat.

“It’s one of those reality TV shows,” Wes whispered to Bud as they were working with the horses. “That’s what it’s got to be. They kidnap people and put them in some weird location. There are teams. One team wins and another loses. Lots of money in it. People get really intense. Usually they don’t use celebrities as famous as me in the middle of a shoot …”

“Wes, you are the biggest pain in the ass. You think the world begins and ends with you.”

“Well, you’re a celebrity, too, Bud. They probably wanted you, too. This might be Indians against white guys, or take over the bitchin’ lady commando. We’ll probably have to do all sorts of tests, like rescue team members and like that. Sometimes you have to eat bugs or play paintball.”

“That’s what those are, paintball guns? You’re out of your mind, Silverhorse. We’re fucked. And Bert is making pot roast tonight.”

“Do you have your cell phone?”

“Yeah. Good idea.” Bud opened it up. “Nothing. No signal at all.”

“It’s because of the cliff. Why don’t we get into that valley, and call Will to rescue us? He’ll send in helicopters.”

“Let’s get this show on the road. The faster we train these horses, the faster we get rescued.”

“Hey, look at that guy!” Wes broke into a grin when he saw Sam. “The really big one with the red stubble? He was in
Vision of Blood
with me. He was the captain of the stunt team. He’s a great guy. See, they didn’t think I could remember. Let’s get him over here and recruit him to our side.”

Sam was surprised when the Indians beckoned him over. Wesley, the good-looking one, acted like he knew him.

“Hey, my man. Your name is Gunnar Helvik, isn’t it? You were in
Vision of Blood
, weren’t you? You were captain of the stunt team.” He did the high-five handshake.

Sam was glad that he knew how to do it. Lady Grace had given them very strict orders: “Do or say
anything
to get them to go along with us. Lie if you have to.”

“Yes. I was the stunt captain.”

“Oh, cool accent, Gunnar. Are you in role?”

“Yes. I am in role.”

“What is this? Is this a reality show? A contest or something? Where’s the other team?”

“Yes. This is a reality show. The other team is over there,” he pointed to the underground, identifiable by the vast thunderclouds over it. “We need to go there very fast.”

“When we get there, can we go home? My wife made pot roast. I hate to miss it.”

“Not tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

“We have to, like play games and things, yeah?”

“Yes. We have to do that.”

“Why are we taking all the guns?”

“To use. Can you show me how to shoot a gun?”

“You were good at it in
Vision of Blood.”

“Yes, but these are real guns.”

“What do you mean, real guns?”

“Real guns.”

“But this is a reality show. I thought you used paint guns.”

“We have those. But this is a real reality show. We use real guns.”

“Fuck. I don’t get it, Gunnar. If this is a show, why real guns? Is this, like, some feud that Will Duane and his worst enemy got into and are playing to the death?’

“Yes, it’s like that. Can you teach me how to tame a horse? I need to know. My children are dying.”

‘What? Your children are dying?”

“Yes. The Bigs have them trapped under the ground. We need to rescue them before they die. We have very little time.”

“What are you talking about? They took kids and put them underground and we have to rescue them? That’s the game? That’s terrible.”

“Yes, it’s terrible.
I
put them there so the Bigs wouldn’t eat them.”

Wes began dancing up and down, the small initial steps of a war dance.

“Oh. I see.” Bud pulled the tall man aside. He didn’t like the way Wes looked. “Gunnar, Wesley is a really famous movie star. He’s basically a nice guy, but he’s had some adjustment issues, coming off the ranch and becoming so famous and rich so fast. Do you have any Xanax? Or tranquilizers?”

“My wife might. Do you want me to find out?”

Wes heard him and came over. “No, no! I’m fine, Bud. It’s fine. Every day, in every way, things are getting better and better. I’m
great
. If my probation officer doesn’t find out I’ve skipped town, I’ll even have a life again. If we get out of this, I’m going to build a guest cottage at my place in Santa Ynez and I’m going to hire a shrink to live in it and never leave home.”

Wes began doing war yells. The horses looked around nervously.

“This is good, Gunnar, he’s doing much better now.”

“We must finish the horses and go. Can you teach me how to ride? Jeremy said you give riding lessons.”