B00C74WTKQ EBOK (23 page)

“Yes sir. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Ralph was back by noon the next day.

“Found them General, right about where you said. I just waited ’til dark then climbed the nearest microwave tower. Spotted their campfire right off—small, practically smokeless, but you can’t hide the glow. You didn’t want me to get too close to them or let them know I was around, so I waited until the sun was coming up and climbed the tower again. With binoculars I could tell they were girls, even though they’re dressed in camouflage; girls move different than men. These are young girls, sixteen of them from my count.”

“Excellent work, Ralph. Show me on the map.”

That night, well after dark Adrian walked into the girl’s camp. He easily bypassed the sentries because he knew their habits; he knew how many sentries and about where they would be located, making locating them easy enough. Adrian wanted to make a point that they weren’t nearly as savvy as they thought they were.

Adrian was sitting down next to the fire almost before the girls realized he was there. They had been staring into the fire and had lost their night vision.

“Damn Race, I just walked right in on you, and making enough noise you should have heard me a mile off. I thought I trained you better than this, staring into a fire at night like that. This is what happens when you get to feeling comfortable and in control, you relax. Don’t think I did anything special either, there’s probably three hundred people in my camp that could have done it just as easily.”

Adrian stirred the fire with a stick while he waited for Race to get her breath.

She and the other girls, had all jumped when he spoke, he had scared them near to death. Adrian had wanted to have the psychological edge and had gained it handily.

Race was shaken, her adrenaline pumping a mile a minute. “Jesus H. Christ Adrian!” she finally stammered out. “We’ve got loaded guns all over the place and anyone of us could have shot you sneaking in like that.”

“You could’ve if you’d been properly alert, if you hadn’t ruined your night vision staring into a fire. Those are amateur mistakes, Race, the kind that can get your crew killed. I’ve told you, use the fire for cooking and then put it out. A dark camp is a safer camp. Enough of that. What are you doing here?” Adrian asked the last question with a stern tone of voice, a voice that brooked no foolishness.

Race tried to get the advantage back, “We heard on the radio that you, Mr. President of the new Republic of Texas, are going to war with Mexico, and were asking for volunteers. We’ve come to help. We won’t go back, sir, not anyway or anyhow. If you don’t let us help, we’ll follow you and help anyway.” Race spoke with a fierce directness, trying to stare Adrian down. She didn’t like it that he had gotten the jump on her. She already knew it would be an uphill battle getting to stay and this didn’t help.

“Disobeying orders is not a small infraction,” replied Adrian sternly. “You may think you can ‘cute’ your way out of the consequences, but you can’t. I relied on you to follow my orders, Race, and you failed me. I am bitterly disappointed.”

Adrian continued, looking at all of the girls as he spoke. “You have caused me to lose valuable time in training and organizing for the upcoming battle. That lack of attention may very well cause people to die, people that, if they had that extra attention, might have lived. What you have done in your arrogance and flagrant disregard for the trust I put in you has serious and probably fatal consequences to other people. Not to mention that you have clearly demonstrated that my trust was misplaced.” Adrian’s voice was like ice.

Race was shocked to her core, he had never spoken to her like that and it was a side of him she hadn’t suspected. She realized as each icy word pierced her heart that Adrian was telling the truth, telling it like it was, and that he was right.

“I’m sorry Adrian, I…I didn’t think of any of that. We just wanted to help.”

“No Race, you don’t get off that easy, I’m not buying that. If you had wanted to help, you would have followed orders, honored our agreement. You’ve gotten a big head, placed your ego above the safety of these girls that follow you out of loyalty. When you needlessly and recklessly endanger your troops, you aren’t fit for command. What you wanted was a share in what you think is the glory of battle, to win approval and to be respected. This is all about foolish ego, like Custer’s was.”

Race was crestfallen. She felt like crying, but with a huge effort stifled the tears. She waited for more of the dressing down that she now realized she deserved. She knew that she would be taking the Rangers back to the ship in the morning.

“Adrian, please…I was wrong. Worse than wrong, I was stupid and you’re right, I wanted to be in the battle. I’ll…I’ll take the girls back tomorrow at first light.” In spite of her best efforts she felt hot tears scalding her face. She looked down, hoping to hide them.

“No. I obviously can’t trust you to do what you’ll say.” With this Race’s heart broke in half and she openly wept.

Adrian watched her for a long moment, then continued. “I would have to send a team with you to make sure you got there, and even then I couldn’t trust you not to sneak off the ship again somehow—you’ve demonstrated a remarkable ability for getting on and off that ship at will. I need those people here to continue training, they need every minute of training they can get, I’ve already explained why.”

“So you leave me no choice but to take you into camp with me. And don’t for a minute think you’re going to enjoy being there. You girls will be placed under camp arrest and you’ll be assigned to kitchen duty. You’ll scrape and wash every dirty dish in that camp from daylight to dark, then you’ll wash clothes until bedtime. You’ll be working hard every waking minute of your day. And understand this completely: when it comes time to fight,
you will not be part of it.
I would ask you if you understand, but I don’t care right now if you do or not, you’ll do as your told, period.”

Adrian watched her again for a minute. He could see a little of the light coming back into her eyes. He knew that she would do as told this time and was relieved not to be returning to the ship.

Adrian continued, in a milder tone than before, but not a friendly one, “You have a long way to go to earn my trust again, a long way. One slip, one mistake, one disobeyed order and that trust will be gone forever with no getting it back, not ever. Now…do you understand that? Have I communicated clearly?”

Race answered meekly, her expression deadpan, “Yes sir, I understand clearly and won’t let you down again, I promise.”

She would keep that promise, she knew that for a fact, but she was beginning to smile inside. She was at least going to be near the battle, she and the Rangers would be working hard at menial tasks, but still tasks that supported the war. So they wouldn’t be going into battle in a blazing fury as she had daydreamed, but they would be doing their part. And she would earn his trust again, or die trying.

And she would damn sure try to find a way to get Adrian to let the Rangers fight, too.

Chapter 25

T
he Fort Brazos Militia arrived
the next morning in a convoy of pickup trucks.

When Adrian received the outlying sentry’s report, he rushed to the overpass and waited for ten minutes, nervously pacing back and forth, trying to calm himself.

As the first truck came to a stop the driver’s door flew open and Linda came rushing out, straight into his arms. Adrian was only dimly aware of the hooting and hollering from the other men in the camp. He was in bliss, holding Linda as tight as he could without cutting off her breath. They embraced for what seemed an eternity. Then they kissed. A long, gentle, soul-satisfying kiss. At this the crowd that had gathered around them roared with delight, but neither Adrian or Linda heard even a whisper.

When they finally released each other they became aware of the crowd around them. Linda blushed, but Adrian just grinned and said loudly, “Anyone ever see a more beautiful woman?”

The crowd roared back at him with approval. Linda turned a deep crimson, but smiled as she looked around at these rough hard men and women that were, in contrast to their looks, obviously romantics at heart.

Adrian took Linda’s hand and led her away. The men and women in the crowd didn’t follow out of common courtesy, but instead swooped down on Roman, Matt, Perry, Tim, and the rest of the militia with a huge welcome of bear hugs and back slaps. They had all heard of Fort Brazos’ war with Rex and were more than delighted to have a trained and recently battle tested group of more Texans joining in the fight.

Adrian said, “Saw the bullet holes in the first three trucks; must have been worse than you told me?”

“Bad enough. We lost two straight up and another from wounds. Several walking injured and one seriously that will make it eventually. Cost us a solid week to tend our wounded and repair the trucks. We’ll need to make some arrangement for Ted; he can’t go any further, he needs a lot of time to recover. After that, I decided we needed to stop and scout any likely ambush spot long before the convoy got to it. That was a slow process, but your army buddies did a great job. Found two more ambushes that we had to take out. Knowing where they were, we were able to come up with a plan for each one, cleaned them all out without taking more than two more injuries. It’s been a rough trip, Adrian; took us two solid weeks to get here,” She ran a hand through her hair. “Back in the day we could’ve been here in ten hours instead of fourteen days.”

“I’m just glad you got here safe, you can’t imagine how much I worried.”

Adrian wrapped his arm tighter around her. “We’ll find someone in Cotulla to look after Ted, pick him up again on the way home eventually, don’t worry about that anymore.”

After another long hug and a longer kiss, Adrian took Linda into the camp to meet the Angels. “Race, bring the girls over. I have someone I want you to meet.”

Race quickly gathered the girls from their various kitchen chores. “Linda, this is Race and the Angels. Girls this is Linda.”

Race looked at Linda with a touch of awe in her face. “You’re beautiful! I knew you would be but…Wow!”

Linda blushed again. “Thank you. I’ve heard so much about you girls that I almost feel like I already know you. I’ve never seen tougher-looking girls, yet you’re each so gorgeous.” This was met with smiles from several dirt-smudged faces.

Race said, “Adrian, I approve. You can marry her.”

Adrian at first frowned, but relented with a small grin. “I’m happy to have your approval and permission.” He said with no small amount of irony in his voice.

The girls and Linda laughed at this. Everyone was staring at Adrian. He suddenly felt like a piece of meat on an auction block. He had been more comfortable up on the speaking platform being elected President than he was now, and he had been far from comfortable then.

“Uh…I just wanted to introduce you all. Now I need to talk to Linda for a while. If you girls will excuse us?” The two of them walked well away from the camp.

“They are utterly charming Adrian,” said Linda, “if a bit rough around the edges. But what in hell are they doing here?”

“Long story darling. The short version is they went AWOL from the ship and came to get in the battle. I don’t dare send them back, they’ll just escape and come back. I’m in a pickle with them, can’t have them here and can’t send them off. Once you get to know them a little you’ll understand. They are pretty girls, but God help anyone that crosses them, they are as rough as cobs. I may have made a mistake training them.”

“Mistake?” Linda shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. If you’ve trained them to take care of themselves that’s not a mistake. A mistake would be to assume they are mature enough to be independent of adult supervision, and since you’re keeping them here to keep an eye on them you’re not making a mistake there either. The trick will be to keep them safe and away from the fight.”

“I’ve been pondering on that and have an idea, but it’s only half-baked right now. I’ll get your advice on it when I’ve given it more thought. But enough of that, what about you and Scott? How have you been? Tell me everything.”

They talked for hours, catching up on their time apart and finally came back to the present.

Adrian took both of Linda’s hands in his and pulled her to her feet, he got down on one knee and said, “This is probably the worst time in the world to ask this, but our tomorrows aren’t guaranteed. Either or both of us might be dead in a couple of weeks and I don’t want to go to my grave without asking you formally. Will you Linda Fremont, beautiful wild woman that you are, strong and independent, healthy and young and knowing you can have the pick of any man, will you marry me?”