Forrest looked over at John, again that seductive offer. He was standing downwind of his friends and of course breathing in the delicious scent.
And then there was the memory of the photograph of Jennifer with her dying mother and the promise he made.
While putting together the drop package, he had come upon the idea of including the photographs as proof of the validity of who he was if it was actually handed intact to Bob. Fishing around in the basement of what had once been Jen’s house, he found the photo albums. Going through them had caused deep stabs of pain, and Makala had found him thus, crying softly as he looked at the photos of Mary holding Elizabeth as a newborn, and then Jennifer. And as well, old photos going back to Mary’s childhood, the day they announced their engagement, the day they got married.
She had not said a word about finding him thus, accepting without question his comment that he was looking for a couple of photographs to enclose in the message capsule as proof of who he was if the situation was too dangerous for them to land.
Looking out across the snow-covered landscape, still smelling the burning cigarettes, his friends unwinding and laughing as men do after a close shave with disaster, he wondered where all of this was leading—and what his reception from Makala would be when they finally got into downtown Morganton, made the long-distance phone call to Black Mountain, and found a way to get the last forty miles back to home.
I hope this was all worth it. His thoughts were more like a prayer. Bob, for God’s sake, I hope you are still alive, that whatever Quentin was raving about was just the memories of a dying man.
He so wanted to believe it—that not only was Bob alive but that he was on the side of Bluemont, the mere thought of him being on their side a reassurance that in spite of the tragedy of the spring, it was a government he could still work with.
CHAPTER SIX
“It’s seven days now without a word from Roanoke or anywhere else.” John sighed, looking over at Maury Hurt, who, along with several of the ham radio operators in their community, had been monitoring 122.9 around the clock.
The response was silence.
“Could it be a signal couldn’t carry that far?” John asked.
“It used to be an open channel for uncontrolled air space,” one of the “hams” replied. “With a handheld unit, I sometimes picked up traffic sixty miles away. The antenna I’ve got set up now picks up some distant chatter—not sure from where, I suspect down toward Charleston—so we should have heard something.”
“And we’re certain it was monitored 24-7, at fifteen minutes into each hour? No holes, no one asleep?”
The small group looked at each other, shaking their heads.
“John, we set up a regular rotation, at least two monitoring at any given time. Zero, zilch, nothing.”
“Okay, thanks for coming over,” John sadly replied. The four left his home, Makala seeing them off and then coming back to sit next to John, who was gazing absently at the fire blazing inside the woodstove.
“Feel it was all for naught?” she asked.
He winced slightly as she took his left hand to examine it. He had lost a glove while leaning out of the chopper, and by the time he had finally arrived back home, his hand was completely numb with a touch of frostbite that was healing but still troublesome, along with the wrenched shoulder from getting slammed against the outside of the chopper.
Makala had hovered over him ever since their return, muttering in stern nurse manner about busted ribs and other assorted injuries from the past with this new one now added in. The trip had drained him, again reminding him that he was no longer a young lieutenant or captain in the field; those days were more than half a lifetime ago. Once home, Makala held him in a fierce embrace, stifling back tears, whispering that when their return was long overdue, everyone had begun to fear the worst—that they had crashed, been shot down, or foolishly landed into a trap and taken prisoner.
He was beyond grateful for her response, given the anger she was feeling when he left and the way she snuggled up close to him after feeding him some hot soup and then packing him off to bed for twelve blessed hours of sleep.
A day later, another storm had rolled in, dropping an additional ten inches. Before the Day, such a storm, though significant for the South, was just part of life. Lifelong residents of the area were now saying it was beginning to look like the worst winter in decades, and given how precarious living now was, a long, snowy winter could indeed turn into a starving and freezing time. In the last three weeks, John calculated that he and Makala had gone through six to eight weeks’ worth of firewood. With a baby due in just about two months, it was becoming another source of worry. He dreaded the hours of work splitting and stacking an extra cord of firewood.
The other source of worry was the apparent loss, at least for some time to come, of their Black Hawk. Bob Gillespie was stripping down the damaged engine; one of the turbine blades had indeed fractured. The wreckage of the three helicopters destroyed in the battle around Asheville Mall back in the spring had been dragged into the old Sears building to get it out of the weather and still rested there. John had agreed to allocate yet more precious gas reserves for Danny and Maury to go to Asheville to see if replacement parts could be salvaged from the wrecks and then transported all the way down to Morganton.
This apparently failed venture to try to get a message to Bob Scales had cost the community several hundred gallons of precious fuel already, along with the possible permanent loss of their captured Black Hawk.
He had long ago learned to compartmentalize the multitude of issues and anxieties that had become part of his daily life, and he had to do so now, forcing a smile as Makala gently massaged his still-tender hand and then checked his shoulder, which was still sore as well. The room was quiet, warm. John sighed and leaned up to kiss her on the lips as she stood beside him.
“You know, this could kind of lead to something,” he whispered, and she hugged him. Several seconds later, he received a solid kick from their baby.
“And that little devil is a mood killer if ever there was one, John Matherson.” She laughed. “Maybe come spring, we can get back to some fun.”
He sighed, content to just hold her, both of them chuckling as the baby continued to squirm and kick.
He finally looked down at his old-style wristwatch, hugged Makala tightly, and then reluctantly stood up. “I really should go up to the college. Ernie and the Hawkinses want to show me what they’re up to.”