Snareville II: Circles (16 page)

“Thank you, Sir,” he said as he looked up. His green eyes were clear. “For the first time in three years, I feel myself. I thank you.”

“You’re Fred?” I asked. Cody watched. I could feel the blood in my face. A few of my troops knew what had been going on with Tess and Cindy, Cody was one.

“Yes, yes. Fredrick Howe.” He held up his hand for me to help pull him up. “I was an attorney before this… ”

A bullet from my rifle punched a hole in his forehead and blew out the back of his skull. One eye popped from Fred’s face from the shockwave and he flopped to his side across one of his women.

“I wondered when you were goin’ to do that,” Cody said. I stared at the corpse. Red blood ran from the wound onto the asphalt. In a few days, it wouldn’t matter. He’d be ash for the field. “C’mon, Boss. We need to check the rest of these.”

I stepped over Fred’s body and worked my way up the road with the troops. No doubt Doctor Leary would tell me that I was backsliding in killing the fucker. Like I gave a shit right then.

We walked to the end of the killing field. Not a zed twitched. Not a finger moved. We found no other survivors. No captives. No meals on hoof. O’Shea’s formula worked. Every corpse fell where it had stood, except for those cut apart. I radioed to the artillery crew the results of their work. Cheers came over the com link. Gibson’s voice carried over with the same results on his side of the front. Cody grinned and slapped me on the back.

“We might live through this yet, Dan,” he said.

I wiped the moisture from my eyes with the ball of my hand. “Yeah.” It came out in a gasp.

Cody’s smile faded. He nodded behind us. “Fast mover,” he said.

I spun, rifle up, thinking it was a zed. A quad runner blasted along the edge of the cornfield. A rooster tail of dust stretched out behind. It got closer. The rider cranked the handlebars and sent it into a powerslide. It rocked to a stop beside us.

“Cherry?” I asked.

“Get the fuck on, hold tight, don’t ask questions.”

It wasn’t good, whatever it was. I flung a leg over the machine as she hit the throttle. Wind whipped away any conversation I could shout. We were eight miles out of town. In the time it took to cover the ground, I came up with a half-dozen worst case scenarios: Cindy and Tess died when I shot Fred. Zeds snuck up on us from the north. One of the cannons misfired and blew the rest of the crews up.

We slid to a stop in a flurry of gravel outside the hospital.

“Birthing room,” Cherry said.

I handed her my rifle, ran in. I peeled armament off as I went through the small building. I ducked through the door. Pepper lay on her side in the bed, nothing on but a gown. A bloody knife lay in a pan near the bed. Her uniform was on the floor in a corner, soaked dark red along one side. She cried and reached out for me.

“…what?”

“She got knifed.” Leary said as he bent over her side. Light blasted down into the wound. Pepper was wide open. He was cleaning and stitching something inside her as Jinks held the wound open. “We got hit by Mongols while you were out on the other end of town. The girls won, took a lot of prisoners. While your crazy wife was patting one of them down, he got a blade in her. On top of all that, Tess and Cindy woke up out of the drugs while you were shelling. It was quite a mess for a few minutes.”

“Wait, what? Cindy…? Pepper? She’s goin’ to be okay?”

“Yeah, just fine. Biggest problem is she decided to go into labor after they picked her up off the ground. Cindy and Tess seem to be back to normal. Tess just flopped into a pile a few minutes ago and is sleeping again. My guess would be Fred is dead.”

“Shit. Yeah, he is.”

Leary pulled another loop through the wound and tied it. “Good. Now I can concentrate on helping your number one wife.”

Pepper squeezed my hand then yelped and pulled away from the needle as Leary sewed.

“I’m sorry, Pepper. Just a few more and we can concentrate on getting this child into the world.”

“Is the baby okay?”

“Blade nicked open the uterus. That’s what I’m closing. We get the baby delivered, I can close the rest of it up with a drain tube. I don’t know what that bastard had on his knife. Problem is the muscle’s cut. It’s going to be a hard delivery. We might have to cut her again and do a C-Section.”

“Do what you can, Doc. I trust you.”

Leary grumbled under his breath. He put in a few more stitches. I knelt down next to the bed so Pep could see me. Her big brown eyes clouded over. They couldn’t give her much in the way of pain killer. “Are you crazy, Wife? You were on bed rest.”

She swallowed as I wiped the sweat from her clammy forehead. “You were busy, Amore. Someone had to man the walls.”

“Okay, Pepper. Jinks’ going to pack this cut and tape it close. We’re going to put you on your back and see if we can get this baby to come see his Mommy.”

She nodded. Jinks went to work. Her hands shook, but she got control and did her job. Gently she and Leary rolled her flat. Pepper grunted as the weight shifted and more pressure was put on the wound.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked.

“Just be here and hold her hand, Dan,” Leary said. He met my eyes. “I have to check how far along she is.” He put Pep’s legs up in the stirrups. “This is going to be uncomfortable, Pepper. Just lay still the best you can and let us help you.”

Pep nodded, Leary disappeared behind the sheet Jinks had spread over my wife’s knees. I had never felt so useless. The last two births went easy. Everything went natural and on time. It wasn’t an emergency situation like this mess.

“Okay,” Leary peered over the top of the sheet. “You’re about halfway dilated. I don’t know if we can wait for you to come along fully. I don’t want to give you petosine with a damaged uterus.”

He stood, whispered to Jinks. Leary left, called for Heather in the hall. Jinks pulled a few things from a cupboard.

“You’re goin’ to get a shave, Pepper.” Jinks said. “Just don’t twitch if you don’t want to lose anything. Been awhile since I did this.” Pepper nodded, a twisted smile on her face. “Get out, Dan. I have to prep her.”

I kissed my wife on the forehead, squeezed her hand one last time and stepped out. Leary came over as I stood there. Ella sat, quiet in chair. I walked over to her, gave her a hug. She wrapped her arms around me, held tight. “They’re both going to be okay, right, Daddy? Momma Pep and Momma Cindy?”

“I won’t let anything happen to either one,” Leary said. “You’re going to have a new brother or sister here in an hour or so. Dan, come with me.”

We walked back toward the small scrub room between the birthing room and surgery. He peeled down to his shorts, ordered me to do the same. We both put on surgical scrubs. I washed in the sink beside him.

“I won’t lie, Danny. We’ve seen too much death together. I’m going to do my best not to let Pepper be one of them. But I’ve never had a birth like this to deal with before. I don’t want her to do much pushing. I’m afraid she’ll rupture her uterus. If this C-Section goes normal, you two will have a fine child to spoil and a great story to tell him when he gets older about how he came into this world. Heather tells me Cindy and Tess are both asleep. Their vital signs are normal. Now, let’s go.”

Heather slid gloves onto both our hands. Pepper lay in the surgical room. A bottle of saline ran into her arm. Another bottle was piggybacked to it. She looked sleepy. I was covered in green scrubs and a mask. I took her hand in mine. Jinks and Heather both joined us shortly after. I could feel Pepper go through another contraction. She tightened her grip on my hand. Leary slid the needle into her belly where he was going to cut. We didn’t have much in the way of medical supplies and something like anesthetics was used sparingly. More of the local was administered.

“Can you feel that?” Leary asked a few minutes after he put the needle aside. He poked her again with a finger, then with a small needle.

Pepper shook her head.

“Okay, we’re going to start. Just relax and breathe through it.”

Pepper nodded, looked up at me. “Got a name picked out?”

I grinned under the mask. “Been a little busy, Baby. We haven’t talked about it much. How ’bout you?”

“Couple.”

I glanced down. Leary was hunched over behind the sheet. Jinks leaned over beside him. She was pale, but still standing. She handed him a tool as he asked for it. Heather adjusted the flow of the drips, watched to make sure everyone was okay. Time was nothing. I had no clue how long we stood there.

“Okay, hold on Pepper. We’re ready. Here comes the baby.”

For a moment, there was a flurry of activity, then a baby cried.

“She’s out. Here she is,” Leary exclaimed. “She looks okay. A little knick on the back. We’ll take care of that. You two have a beautiful, baby daughter.”

“A girl…” I whispered. The little one looked like her momma: thick black hair, big hazel eyes, long body.

“You make big babies,” Pepper said with a weak smile. “We got a baby girl.”

Jinks handed me a pair of scissors. For a second, I looked at them, then realized what she wanted me to do. I reached over, cut the cord. My daughter let go with another squall. She balled up her little fists. They laid her on Pepper’s chest.

“Jennifer,” Pepper said as she kissed the top of the baby’s head. She looked up at me. “Jennifer Danielle Jackson.”

I smiled through the tears. “Jennifer it is.”

“Out,” Leary said. “They’re both fine. Get out and let us fix your wife.”

Heather led me to the door. In a daze I stumbled back over to Ella, who stood in the middle of a small crowd. I made the announcement I had a baby girl, gave them the name and collapsed in a chair to much cheering.

Chapter 23

For a week Pepper stayed in the hospital with Jenny. They were both healthy for the most part. Pepper was on total bed rest to heal. She had stitches in her in a number of places. Infection never came about. She was tender and sore and grumpy from being cooped up, but she was alive. By the time she was able to hobble to the bathroom by herself, Leary gave her release to go home, again, under bed rest.

Dan spent the week taking care of his kids. He did bring them in to see Mommy Pepper more than once and their new baby sister. Rachel patted Jennifer on the cheek, saying “Baby, baby.” Michael didn’t seem to be much impressed, but he got the idea that he had a new sister.

They had one more raid from the Mongols. Some well placed mortar rounds broke up the attack. Apparently the Mongols were used to catching people off guard and intimidating the hell out of them with the noise of their bikes and shooting a few as they tried to run away. Didn’t work on Raiders and Marines. Gibson offered to hunt them down, or call in an air strike. Dan told him no. The Horde might have been a collection of assholes, but they were breathing ones. They might eventually settle down somewhere, they might get eaten by zeds, but he wasn’t going to wipe them out.

At the end of the week, Dan sat in his office. Those six Mongols who survived their first attack were marched into his office. He offered them seats. The women sat, the two men remained on their feet. They were dressed in plain clothes: jeans and tee shirts with jackets over the top. Tennis shoes. They’d all had a chance to shower and clean up. For the first time in months, they’d eaten well every day.

“You can’t keep us prisoner,” the younger man said. “You ain’t got no jail from what I’ve seen. You got to let us go.”

Dan stood. He walked to the side of his desk. “What’s your name, kid?”

“They call me Scorpion.”

Dan half-grinned. “They call me Danny Death.”

Scorpion glanced sideways at him, swallowed hard. “So you’re the great Danny Death. I figured you’d be older.”

“You get old fast these days.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Here’s the offer. You can leave, but there’s only two bikes left in running order. I haven’t seen the rest of your Horde in four days. We won’t give you anything but what you came in here with. You go back out on your own.”

“How do you expect us to survive on that?” A woman asked. She looked at Dan. Sunlight glittered on the ring in her nose and bottom lip. “We were on a raid when you caught us. We didn’t even have any food on our bikes.”

“Right.” Dan walked around the other side of his desk. “So, here’s where the choice comes in. You could stay here. We have the room, but you’re expected to carry your weight and follow the rules. We don’t ask much. We put in a day’s work in the fields or the shops. We don’t get into bar fights or cause trouble. We’ve got enough of that beyond the walls.”

“That’s it? That’s all?” the girl with the rings asked. “We behave and help out and we can stay?”

“What’s your name?” Dan asked.

The girl thought a moment. Her blue eyes shot back and forth around the room as she looked at Dan. Her right hand roamed across the piercings on her face. “Penny. My name is Penny Johanson. God, it’s been a long time.”

Dan smiled at her. “Yes, Penny. That’s all we ask of you. You behave and help out, you can stay.”

“Bullshit, Cat,” Scorpion spat. Penny flinched. “They’re not going to let you be that easy. They’ll have you whoring for them in a week. Nothin’s that easy. I’m leaving.”

“That’s fine,” Dan said. “Anyone else want to go?”

“You serious in your offer, Death?” The older man spoke up for the first time. His long beard was mostly grey. His hair, pulled back in a ponytail, had been washed during the week.

“You’re not thinkin’ of staying, are you, Horse?” Scorpion asked.

“Boy, I’ve been runnin’ since I got back from the ’Nam. I’m tired. I’m old. I know the odds out there without the rest of the Horde.”

“I’m serious, Horse,” Dan said. “We’ve got homes between here and the Mennonites that are open for someone to live in.”

In the end, only Scorpion left. He was escorted to the north wall, given his shotgun and a bag of shells. A half-dozen Raiders covered him with their rifles. He was told not to load up until he was out of sight of town. With a one fingered salute, he roared north out of the valley.

Mongols were spread out through town. For the moment, they weren’t given arms. Dan wanted them to adjust to being part of a community before he allowed them to have any guns.