The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (36 page)

“You don’t want to follow me,” Adam quickly replied.

“Why is that?” Lillian asked.

“Because those who follow me get shot,” Adam replied coldly. “Besides, I don’t want to lead and—”

“Which is precisely why we want to follow you,” Jack cut in. “You know, back when half the country was searching for you, I never thought you were guilty. I never really believed Lukas was telling the truth about you or much anything else for that matter. As I watched Dan Martin spill everything you had fought for before Lukas spilled his blood, I knew for certain you were innocent. Adam, I only want what’s best for my family and friends here. I don’t want to follow someone that’s only interested in vengeance and war. I want us to follow someone who is interested in seeing the flag fly again.”

“And what makes you think I don’t want vengeance?” Adam asked.

“Because I don’t think a man that fought so hard to preserve the United States will succumb to vengeance if there is a glimmer of hope that America might still live.”

Adam stared back at Jack quietly, his mind alive with thoughts of hope and doubt. He wanted to believe there was more than vengeance in his future, but the deaths and pain of those he cared about wouldn’t stop nagging at him.

“I don’t know,” Adam said, shaking his head after a lengthy pause.

“What don’t you know?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know!” Adam shouted. “You’re looking to me like I’m some great leader and I don’t want any of this. I never wanted to be the guy everyone was looking to for answers. I don’t want your blood on my hands!”

“But there’s no one else,” Jack replied.

“Oh, don’t give me that bullshit,” Adam replied angrily. “Why me? Why not Gene or William or you?” He motioned to Jack. “You’ve done a heck of a job getting your people through the winter. I’ve done nothing but fumble around from one place to the next.”

“It’s been a long time since America got behind someone that wasn’t in it for the personal gain,” Jack said. “I might be capable of getting my group through the winter—and you can bet your ass I’ll be fighting to get us through whatever tomorrow brings—but you’re the one capable of breathing life back into the country. Not Gene, not William. You, the congressman who can still revive the land of the free. One homestead might unite behind me, but a thousand communities that want to see America again would unite behind you.”

“Look, I want to see America live again just as badly as any one of you, but I’m just one man with no hope and barely enough energy to make it through tomorrow. Even if I thought I could help, I have to be realistic about that. I don’t think I can do what you’re asking. I just don’t—”

“I’m not looking for promises and guarantees,” Jack interrupted, his lips curving into a grin. “That would be the political thing to do and we most definitely don’t want a politician. We want a humble, yet fierce, patriot. I just want to see a man like you do nothing more than try. But first, we all want to hear your story. We want to know more about the man we think is worth us uniting behind. That’s all we’re asking of you today.”

My story,
Adam thought quietly as he stared back at Jack. It had been a long time since he had thought about all of the events leading up to his battle for America. He had fought so hard and lost so much. He had tried to forget the painful past that lay behind him. As much as he wanted the memories of yesterday to remain buried, he wanted to move on from the loss of his family and believe Marc’s words from earlier.

America’s not dead yet.

“My story,” Adam began, clearing his throat. “It all starts a year and a half ago with me, my son Judah, and the largest elk I’d ever seen….”

C
hapter
T
welve

Flight of the Iris

Judah exhaled a hazy breath into the night and smiled as he watched the campfire light illuminate his jubilant sisters and their clumsy dance. Eva was now running circles around Grace with her arms out wide while singing the theme to
The Maidens of Monarch
—a summer blockbuster from a few years prior that had continued to harass parents through the radio up until the collapse of the United States. Judah doubted something as trivial as the destruction of America could have ever destroyed the
Song of the Maidens
, and his sisters’ skit proved his thoughts to be true.

It had been just over four weeks since their flight from Montgomery and the death of Judah’s grandparents. Eric had wanted to continue at their usual break-neck pace, but everyone else had reached a point where their bodies and minds demanded what rest they could manage. They had fled north after the battle, joining a growing throng of refugees and spending multiple days at a time recuperating in various camps and towns. However, each time they had begun to settle in for more than a few days, they found themselves fleeing northwest as rumors of battle, war, and abduction pursued them.

Their time on the road had been long, slow, and strenuous. After a few precarious confrontations with other refugees, they had decided to abandon the safety of the masses and march onward as quietly and privately as possible. They now found themselves alone and twenty miles south of Memphis at Arkabutla Lake. Eric ensured them all he had a plan and Judah had yet to find a reason to distrust the one man who had saved them thus far.

As Eva and Grace finished their skit, raising their hands and blaring out the final note together with the harmony of children bellowing, they each dropped to a knee and bowed their heads, symbolizing the end of the ballroom ballad and the part of the movie where a kingly father returns from battle. Alexandra threw her head back and laughed, exploding with applause while Sarah, Elizabeth, and Trey clapped with approval. Even Eric grinned as he leaned up against a nearby oak, his eyes moving from the two girls to Sarah before raising back up to survey the shadows. Judah smiled and shifted his gun—one of the Ranger-issued, semi-automatic Seven Six-Two assault rifles capable of ripping a six-inch hole through a man at three hundred yards—and raised his hands to clap.

Instead, he looked down at his weapon and frowned. Judah’s rifle was his reality, not some child’s story about a lonely king attempting to raise his daughters amidst some fantasy war. While that children’s tale had come and passed, Judah’s story continued to unfold day after cold, bitter day. He doubted it would end like some dreamy fairy tale. Though he wanted to hope for more, the only certainty he knew he could look forward to were long hours on the road before he kills his first man. Still, Judah wanted to believe in happy endings and joyful beginnings, and the laughing girl across the fire had given him hope for such an outcome, whether she had intended to or not.

“Your turn,” Eric said quietly as he tossed Alexandra a small flashlight. “Only you get to follow along in Morse code.”

“I don’t think I’m that good yet,” Alexandra said with a laugh before turning to Judah. “I bet you could do it by now.”

Judah smiled quietly as he shook his head in reply. Alexandra tossed the flashlight back to Eric, insisting he give it a try. Much to their surprise, Eric shrugged and started spelling out the lyrics in Morse as the girls sang the song again. Even he laughed as he struggled to keep up with the girls’ quickening pace. Alexandra leaned back and brushed the hair back from her face as her laughter subsided, smiling as she gave both Grace and Eva an over-the-top high five when they ran by. She glanced over at Judah and smiled again. She beamed with beauty, courage, and innocence. Judah’s cheeks grew hot and his chest constricted as he smiled back and nodded.

You are gorgeous,
Judah thought to himself, wishing he had the courage to speak it aloud.
What if I did say it? What if I told her how beautiful she is in front of my friends and family? What if I told her she is the sun in a dark world? What if I told her I’d do anything just to see her smile?

But instead of revealing everything he wanted to say, he simply nodded and looked back into the fire, a sad sense of defeat washing over him. For Judah, it was a strange and shameful thing—being ready to kill a man before finding the courage to tell a girl how he’s fallen for her. The thing was, as much as he thought he was ready to kill, he was still that asthmatic boy wheezing for air in the grocery store as Alexandra fought for him. He needed to prove he could protect her; he just didn’t know how.

“Never a dull moment with any of you,” Trey finally said as Eric finished and the two girls plopped down next to Sarah. “As much as I’d like to stick around to see what happens once the mean ol’ king has his heart softened by a trio of disobedient dreamers, I think we’ve all seen the movie about a thousand times and heard the song at least five times that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Where are you going?” Eric asked.

“My Featherweight is having a hard time syncing for some reason. It’s been acting up since Montgomery, but it usually works after a few minutes of me tweaking the system. It’s been an hour since I could get a link and I’m starting to wonder if something might be damaged. I think if I can climb that maintenance tower on the dam a mile back I might be able to link up and get a better idea of what’s going on outside of our camp.”

“I don’t think that’s a wise thing to do,” Eric said.

“Oh, come on,” Trey protested. “We’ve seen nothing but a few other refugees that are just as tired and scared shitless as us since we left Tupelo.”

“Mr. Webster,” Sarah began with both kindness and a no-nonsense tone, “I’d greatly appreciate it if you watched your mouth around my kids. They’ve seen and heard enough foulness over the past few months without your help.”

“My apologies,” Trey replied with a slight bow and hint of sarcasm. “As I was saying, it’s already taken us an ungodly amount of time to get this far and I’d like to figure out what’s going on in Memphis so we can get going as soon as possible.”

“We’ll find out what’s going on in Memphis when I can survey it with my own eyes in a few days,” Eric replied.

“I don’t want anyone wandering off by themselves and I’m not leaving the girls. We can all go in the morning if it means that much to you.”

“What are you afraid of?” Trey asked.

“Only that which I can’t see.”

“There’s nothing out here,” Trey argued. “I didn’t see anything on my Featherweight when we were—”

“You mean that piece of broken tech you were just telling me about?”

“It’s fine,” Judah said, cutting in as Trey was readying himself to shout. “I’ll go with him.”

“Excuse me?” Sarah said, sitting up with a hint of anger masking her face. “You’re staying right here.”

“I can handle myself, Mom,” Judah argued. “Besides, Trey is right. It’s just us out here and we all know it. We haven’t seen anyone since we left the other refugees.”

“Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there,” Sarah replied.

“That sounds like Christian theology and not factual logic if you ask me,” Trey replied.

“And if you ask me, Mr. Webster,” Elizabeth began, a warm smile on her face and daggers in her eyes, “I pity the man who looks out at the world and thinks it’s all a figment of his imagination because he can’t feel past his own nose.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Trey asked.

“It means a battle between good and evil is clearly being waged in this world right now and you might as well be a blind, blubbering fool if you can’t grasp that.”

“Well, I’m pragmatic,” Trey replied with an irritating grin. “Show me an authentic miracle that can’t be explained without your God and I’ll show you a convert. For now, I’ll rely on my eyes and my tech to see what’s going on.”

“And I’m going to help him.” Judah’s eyes flickering over to Alexandra. She stared back at him blankly, her eyes narrowing as though she were studying him. He firmed his jaw and looked away as he stood up, holding his gun. “We passed the tower coming in and it can’t be much more than a mile back along the dam. We’ll be back in less than forty-five minutes.”

Sarah glanced over at Eric, searching for a rebuttal. Instead, he lowered his head and nodded. Sarah sighed and shook her head. “Judah, I don’t want—”

“Let them go,” Eric said. “Judah’s right and he needs to learn to take care of himself.”

“But he’s just a teenager,” Sarah countered. “Give me a good reason why my son needs to prove anything to anyone in a time like this?”

“Not ours to reason why, but to do and die,” Eric replied, looking up at Judah with respect and sadness in his eyes. “It’s a new world and we all need to learn how to live in it. Besides, they’ll be fine.” Eric walked over to Judah, handing him his advanced self-targeting rifle in exchange for Judah’s weapon.

“You’re giving me your gun?” Judah asked.

“Loaning,” Eric replied with a smile. “Don’t think I won’t be asking for it when you get back. Fire three shots in the air if you need help. Even at a mile I can be there fast. You see anyone and you come right back here, got it? No hero bullshit.”

“Got it,” Judah said, glancing over at Alexandra with an uncertain smile. “We’ll be back.”

Ten minutes later, Judah walked backwards as he watched the twinkling of the campfire finally vanish behind the trees. Judah and Trey were less than half of a mile away from the tower now, having walked the distance without a word. Judah glanced over at the side of the road and paused, smiling as he took three steps and knelt down in the grass. He reached down to his belt and drew the knife his father had given him—reading the inscription on the blade underneath the dim moonlight as he thought back to his father’s words.

“Keep this with you always and remember that I love you, Judah. You are truly your own man now.”

Judah smiled as he thought about his father. Despite the lack of emotion over his father’s death, he caught himself thinking often about his dad ever since his grandfather had died. Though he wouldn’t yet allow himself to display any pain at the loss of his dad, the long hours on the endless road had been full of Judah trying to recall every vague memory he had of the man who had raised him.

Judah reached down with the knife and severed the stem of a brilliant Iris flower. He raised it up with a smile, thinking of Alexandra and how nice it would look in her dark hair, wishing his dad was there to tell him how to talk to a girl. As he turned it over, Judah glanced over at Trey who stopped and now smiled back as he shook his head.

“You’re like a nervous kid looking to roll his house.”

“Roll a house?” Judah asked, tucking the flower in his vest pocket and his knife in its sheath.

“Yeah,” Trey replied. “You know, tee-pee, forking, pouring flour on someone’s yard the night before it rains. My favorite was always the air horn. We’d take two feet of duct tape and press one end against the side of the can. We’d then drive up to someone’s house, pull the rest of tape tight over the button on the top to make it start howling, and throw the can onto the roof. That sucker wakes everyone up within a mile and who the heck is getting on their roof in the middle of the night to get it down?”

Judah frowned and shrugged as he continued forward toward the tower, shifting his weapon strap back onto his shoulder.

“You mean to tell me you’ve never rolled a house?” Trey asked disbelievingly as he resumed his walk as well.

Judah shook his head.

“Your mom must have had her apron strings tied nice and tight around your…well, I’d hate to say something that might
corrupt
her child and redden your innocent ears.” Trey smiled, shaking his head as he chuckled.

“I was the son of a congressman and the nephew of a senator,” Judah replied. “My mom tried to keep me out of trouble for their sake.”

“And what about your dad? He never taught you to—”

“My father is dead,” Judah said quickly, reforming his thick emotionless wall of apathy. “Or have you forgotten? He died fighting for this country while men like you played video games, rolled houses, and hacked celebrity accounts to distribute photos you don’t have a right to in the first place. I wonder if all this crap would have still happened to America had everyone as bright as you taken life a bit more seriously.”

“First of all, there isn’t anyone else as bright as me,” Trey replied angrily as he rounded on Judah. “And secondly, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I was fighting for this country well before your father knew there was a war coming.” Trey paused, looking Judah up and down before shaking his head. “Hell, I was fighting for the Reinhart family long before you knew there was a fight coming.”

Trey shoved Judah and shook his head as he turned back toward the road and continued forward.

“What do you mean you’ve been fighting for my family?” Judah asked after a pause.

“Forget about it,” Trey said without looking back. “I’ll tell you one day and we’ll have a good laugh over fate’s ironic sense of humor. For now, I’m more interested in hearing how you’re going to do it?”