Chapter 7
MARCH 9, MORNING
LINDA AROSE EARLY AND HEADED for Roman’s house. Adrian had asked her to come by, as he had something he wanted to discuss with her. She was instantly curious, but held her questions. Linda arrived and was soon having hot tea with Adrian and Sarah and Roman while Scott played with Bear in the living room.
Adrian blew on the tea, took a sip, and set the cup down. “From the looks of things, this is going to be a hard fight, and one we can’t afford to lose. We lose this, and we’re all dead—or those that survive will wish they were dead. It’s going to take the total efforts of every able-bodied person we have, and that still leaves us badly outnumbered. I’m not just talking about the men; the women are going to have to fight, too. So will every child that is old enough to aim and pull a trigger, if a last ditch defense occurs. I want your advice on what I’m thinking.
“My plan, such as it is right now, is to take all of the able-bodied men into the field and attack the raiders as far away from here as possible. What that does, though, is leave the infirm, the children, and the women here in the village. If our men don’t stop them, those who stay here will be captured or killed. So what I’m thinking is we arm everyone old enough and healthy enough that’s left here and train them for a last ditch defensive battle.”
Linda interrupted him, “Let me get this straight: you plan to leave the women and children and elderly here to fight against the men that will have defeated you?”
Adrian looked at her for a moment, noting that her face was turning pink and there was fire coming from her eyes. He said, “No, that’s not the total plan. The plan is that the women and children and old folks will evacuate to someplace miles away. Part of that plan is to create a fighting force of the able-bodied women and older children to fight a rear guard action, if necessary, to protect the evacuation point. To protect them in their new and hidden location. It’s either that, or they keep running, and that won’t work; by definition, they won’t be a group that can travel and survive because of the number of very young, very old, and the infirm. Whether you’ll be able to come back here someday or have to start over somewhere else is anybody’s guess. It’s the best safety valve I can think of. The reason I asked for your advice is that I’m hoping that you three can come up with a better plan.”
The four sat in silence for several minutes. Then Linda said, “That plan stinks, but I’ll be damned if I can think of a better one…for now. Roman, Sarah, got any better ideas?”
Sarah said, “Unfortunately, no.”
Roman shook his head silently with a grim expression.
Adrian waited a minute and then said, “All right, then, until a better plan comes along, we’ll need to get started on this one.” Patton said, “‘A good plan implemented today is better than a perfect plan implemented tomorrow.’ I fully believe that. My idea is that Sarah will lead the villagers to the remote location. I think it best if none of the men that are going out to fight know where that location is. Then, if they’re captured and tortured, they can’t give it up. Linda, I believe you’re the best choice to lead the rear guard fighters. I don’t know you all that well, but what I have seen leads me to believe you’re mentally and physically tough enough for it. You two willing to take these jobs on?”
Sarah said, “I’ll get started today, talking to the people I know won’t be going out. There is a pecan orchard—”
“Hush!” Adrian said quickly, interrupting her. “I don’t want to know where it is, either. I don’t believe any man can stand up to torture if the person doing the torture is skilled. I’ve seen a few instances of that.”
Sarah replied, “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Anyway, I know of a good enough place—it’s quite a ways away from here and not likely to be found.”
Linda impatiently said, “I can shoot and usually hit what I aim at, but I don’t know anything about fighting tactics. I’m a farmer. I’ve never been in a gunfight of any kind. Never shot at a man before. I don’t know anything about leading a combat team. Surely one of your Army buddies would be much better?”
Adrian looked into her eyes. “Any rational person would have your doubts. If I left one of the men to lead you ladies into combat, I am afraid he would be too conservative, too unwilling to risk women’s lives. It’s a cultural failure we have in this country, men are over-protective of women. It goes against a man’s grain to put women into harm’s way. A woman, on the other hand, won’t have those un-natural ideas about leading women. A woman leader will be more objective, even clinical, in doing what has to be done using other women.
“I also believe that women will trust a woman leader more readily than they will a man. Besides that, just about everyone else has attachments to the people that will be left in the village, and that will hamper their thinking. You have only your son here, and I think that enhances your ability to think clearly. You won’t be hampered in the way others would. The main thing a leader has to be able to do is coldly assess and evaluate their troop’s ability and the enemy’s capabilities. To see the big picture clearly and respond quickly to changes as they occur. I’m aware you have no experience at this, but I believe you have the qualities that are needed.”
Adrian continued, “Don’t worry about the battle tactics, I’ll drill you until your eyes bleed, and then when the bullets fly, you’ll react correctly. It’s not brain surgery; it’s a matter of keeping your head when the fighting starts. I think you’ll do that just fine.”
Linda took a sip of tea, her hand trembling a bit. “That’s an awful lot of believing that you’re doing on my behalf. I’m not at all sure you’re right, and if you’re not, what happens to those of us you leave behind? You’re pushing a huge amount of responsibility on me, and I have no background to determine if you’re right or wrong. If I accept, I have to blindly believe everything you’ve told me, and I’m not good at blindly believing anything. “
Adrian said, “You see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re looking at this clearly and objectively and not being persuaded merely because I’m trying to persuade you. Are you aware of how rare that is? Can you pick out a better woman leader from the available women?”
Linda looked down at her tea and thought for a long moment. “No, I can’t, but I’ve only been here a short time and don’t know the women that well.”
Sarah reached over and squeezed Linda’s hand briefly. “I know every one of them, and none of them would be as good for this as you. I would follow you without hesitation; I can’t say that about any other woman in the village.”
Adrian said, “Let’s do this. You take command, and if after a few days in the position you want to appoint someone else that you think will do a better job, I’ll back you up. You’ll get a chance to see the women in training, evaluate them from a new perspective. If you identify a better candidate, then we’ll make the change. But you have to make that decision within a week, or it’ll be too late to make the change effectively. Deal?”
Linda looked hard at Adrian. He was aware of her inner turmoil, so he waited patiently for her to sort her thoughts out. She finally said, “I have to tell you that I resent being put in this spot. I just arrived here recently and now you want to put all of this responsibility on me. I don’t like it one bit. But I also realize that it isn’t you that created this situation—it just is what it is—so if you think I am the person you need for this, then I’ll go along with it for a few days and see what happens. I am agreeing with full reservations, though.”
Adrian replied, “Understood and appreciated. I know that I have thrown you a hell of a lot in just a few minutes. Most people who have this level of responsibility in a war have had years to prepare for it. Most people would have been in a military career with years of training, would be there because that’s what they wanted for themselves. And here, I’m throwing this at you without warning, expectation, or any desire on your part for it. It’s a lot to consider. I get that, and I’m sorry to ask this of you. But I need the absolute best we have available, and in my eyes—backed up by Sarah, by the way—you are the absolute best available here. Frankly, I think you would be the absolute best in any group anywhere under similar conditions, based on how you handled the raider situation when it came upon you, and how you took your son across country and survived. I don’t see this as picking the best of a bad lot; I see this as being damn lucky someone of your caliber happens to be available. I know it’s a lot to ask, but the life of everyone that will be left behind in the village has to depend on someone, and you are heads and shoulders above anyone else here. I know many of the villagers, and have Sarah, Roman and Matt’s opinions on the ones I don’t know. I understand your reservations and accept them. I am convinced, though, that once I start training you, you’ll understand that it really is up to you, not someone else. You’ll be able to evaluate these folks in action and see for yourself. Sometimes, you just get hard stuff thrust on you because you’re the best available, and this is one of those times. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
Linda studied Adrian’s eyes for a long moment, judging whether or not he was being sincere. Ultimately, her instincts told her that he was playing it straight. She responded, “That’s quite a speech, and it’s also quite complimentary. But speeches and compliments do not change facts, and I have to look at this from a factual basis, not an emotional one. I stand by what I said: I’ll take it on with full reservations that if I find a better person for the job, then that person takes over. If after one week I cannot honestly say someone else can do it better, then I’ll continue on…if you still think I’m the best person for it after you’ve seen me in operation for a week. That’s the best I can give you right now.”
Before Adrian could reply, Sarah spoke. “Linda, I’ve raised Adrian since he was eight years old. You’ve only known me for a couple of weeks and Adrian for a couple of days. If it is of any help to you, I can promise you that he is sincere and honest. I can’t remember ever catching him in a lie, even as a little boy. Whenever he did wrong, he didn’t avoid responsibility or try to talk his way out of it. He took whatever consequences he had coming and never once tried to lie his way out. I’m well aware of how rare that is, and how you have little reason to believe it. I’m just telling you what I know for what little peace of mind you can get out of this. It’s a hard thing he’s asking you. But I’m asking you, too, and for the same reason. I know the women in this village, and I know a little about you. What I know of you makes me trust you, and I’m willing to trust you with my life, and my grandchildren’s lives. I can’t imagine any stronger way to put it than that. You’re the best we have for this.”
Linda reached across the table and squeezed Sarah’s hand. “Thank you, Sarah. Thank you very much. That means more than you know. I realize, too, that you and the entire village are placing a lot of trust in me, and that’s an honor as high as any I have ever imagined. I’ll do the best I can for a week, and then we’ll see from there. Okay?”
Sarah and Adrian simultaneously said, “Okay”
MARCH 9, LATE AFTERNOON
Roman addressed the villagers, who had all gathered in the village square at his request.
Roman stood in front of the crowd. “The reason I asked you here is to give you a vote on whether or not you want Adrian or someone else to lead us in this war against the raiders. I called him home to lead us, but I won’t be the only one following him—or following someone else we choose. Obviously, my vote is for Adrian. I’m his uncle, I raised him since he was eight years old, so I’m clearly biased.
“This is a life or death situation. When we fight, if we choose to fight, some of us will die. I think that’s a given fact. So you have an absolute right to choose who you will follow. Your very life depends on who you follow. Therefore, let me hear any nominations for a leader. Nominate yourself or someone else. If anyone has an alternative plan, please raise your hand.” There was a long silence, and no hands were raised. “Please do not be shy about this, it’s too important. Anyone with any nomination, please raise your hand.”
After another long silence, one hand was tentatively raised way in the back. “Yes?” Roman said. “Who’s your nominee?” A voice from the back said, “Adrian, of course.”
Roman said, “All right, then, let’s have a show of hands for those who are willing to follow Adrian.”
All hands went up; it was a unanimous vote. Roman said, “Then I’ll step back and let Adrian take it from here.” Roman moved back. Adrian stepped forward and began speaking.
“As you all know, there are one hundred and eighty heavily armed and savage barbarians heading for us. They are two to three weeks out. We have few options, and none of them are great. I’ll lay them out for you. Option one: we sit here hoping they go away. Option two: we fight them here if they don’t go away. Option three: we take all able-bodied men and attack them as far from here as we can, attempting to destroy them before they get here. And option four: we evacuate the village and let them have it, then re-establish somewhere else, hoping they don’t come after us again once they decide they aren’t cut out to be farmers.
“If we decide to attack them in the field, we have two choices for those who stay behind. One, they stay here and hope we win. Two, they evacuate to a place far away in case we don’t win. These decisions have to be made today, here, right now. There’s no time for delay. What I would like is for you all to take an hour to discuss it with your wives and husbands and friends. At the end of that hour, I’ll answer questions for half an hour or so. Then we’ll have a show of hands. But remember, there is one other personal option you have: you as individuals or families can choose to leave on your own. You also need to understand that if you do choose that route, I doubt you would ever be welcomed back here again by the ones who stayed and fought. So if you leave—which you are certainly free to do—it should be with the understanding that you won’t be allowed to come back here to live. If you won’t stand and fight for survival with us now, then you won’t be allowed to take protection later from those that did.”
With that, Adrian walked over to sit with Roman, Sarah, and Linda.
The buzz of talk started slowly, but built into a loud murmur. Roman and Sarah were quiet, their decision already made. Linda looked at Adrian with piercing eyes, her jaw jutting out slightly and said, “I have just one question. Are you planning on coming back alive if you don’t win?”
Adrian smiled at her, enjoying her directness. “Not a chance. If we lose, it won’t be because I gave up for any reason short of being killed. We simply cannot afford to lose. Nothing short of winning is acceptable. If we lose we’ll all die at their hands anyway, it’ll be better to go down fighting than to go down begging.”
Linda replied, “I just want to know—my son’s life is largely dependent on you and these men. I could leave right now, taking my son with me. We traveled before and it was rough, but not as rough as staying here to fight is going to be. We could make do, find another place to live.”
Adrian asked her, “Why aren’t you going, then?”
Linda replied, “Believe me, it’s tempting. But wherever we go, we’ll likely face raiders again at some point. Eventually we’ll be in this spot again, but I doubt we’ll be in a place with this many people that can fight back or with leaders that know how to fight back effectively. Our odds of winning are better here than anywhere else I’ve been, and if we win this battle against this many raiders, I doubt we’ll ever be attacked by anyone again. Our people will be battle experienced and organized and the news of this victory will spread everywhere. After this battle, if we win, this will be the safest place there is. It’s also a good place to raise Scott.”
Adrian nodded. “Good logic.” Then he sat quietly, waiting.
Adrian had more doubts than Linda did. He didn’t know the true capability of these men. They were tough; they had to be to survive. They were definitely survivors, but survival and war are elementary opposites. In war, a man is called upon to do the exact opposite of what a good survivor does. Survival mostly consists of avoiding trouble whenever possible. War requires a man to go directly and deliberately into harm’s way. These men who demonstrated strong survival instincts just by their still being alive—would they overcome that instinct and fight instead? He wouldn’t know—couldn’t know—until it was far too late to change strategy.
He didn’t know the capability of the raiders in a pitched battle, either. They had at least demonstrated a desire to kill, to face other people and deliberately kill them. Whether they had ever faced a truly tough enemy force or not, he didn’t know. Maybe they would fold at their first encounter with a determined and armed enemy, or maybe not. They had the advantage of numbers. Adrian’s men were outnumbered two to one, and by men who were vicious beyond description and would show absolutely no mercy. Well, neither will I. He was confident on at least that point.
One of the possibilities was that the raiders could engage the villagers in battle and then split their own forces. They could send a hundred men against the village while keeping the village men in the field fighting. He couldn’t see the shape or the outcome of the battle, whether it would go for or against them. The stakes were as high as they could possibly get; losing would mean the death or slavery of every villager. Survival was tough enough without the raiders, but it would become extremely rough and uncertain under their cruel captivity.
Adrian also had recurring doubts about his own ability to lead. He had successfully led small groups of extremely skilled and dedicated soldiers on strictly defined missions. He had led the Colorado villagers successfully against the cannibals. He had also led the original Fort Brazos inhabitants against that crazy ex-wrestler Mad Jack, but back then he had been cocky, had had no doubt of his own invincibility. What they had pulled off then had been based largely on luck and an unbelievable amount of confidence. Confidence that in hindsight he realized they didn’t own, but had borrowed. This was different, though. Before this, the largest stakes he’d had in a battle were his and his men’s lives. In the previous Fort Brazos battle, he had been blind to the possible consequences of failure. In Colorado, it was the lives of people he didn’t know. Here, the stakes were his family, his friends, and his village. Here, the stakes were everyone and everything. This was literally a do or die situation; there would be no outside help, no cavalry coming to the rescue, no one to back these men up as they fought for their existence.
Adrian didn’t know if he and his men were truly capable of pulling this off. He mulled over these doubts, knowing that the last thing he could do—or would do—would be to show his doubts. The only thing he was positive about was that if anything defeated these men and women, it would not be their leader showing doubt—they deserved better than that. If he showed doubt, it would inject fear into them that they didn’t need to deal with. That kind of fear would be debilitating, if not annihilating. They looked to him for confidence, placed their trust in his confidence. He knew that this was the biggest acting job he had ever taken on, so he would do it well. If nothing else, he would do that one thing well. That included not sitting here looking morose, he reminded himself. So Adrian sat and waited patiently, allowing no shadow of a doubt to flicker across his face as his people kept turning to look at him while they talked it out amongst themselves.
Shortly before the hour was up, the talking slowed to a near stop. Adrian took that as his cue to resume, then stood up and walked back to his spot. “Most of you don’t know me, so personal questions are fair to ask. Who wants to go first?”
From the back of the crowd came a woman’s voice. “Is it true you sired bear cubs up there in the mountains?” Adrian’s face immediately turned bright red from embarrassment, and the tension of the last hour was broken with an uproar of laughter from the crowd. Adrian raised both hands in defeat and the laughter slowly died down. Adrian said, “I didn’t mean that personal.” It was the right reply, and the crowd roared with laughter again. Adrian, knowing they needed this break in tension, took it on the chin and waited, smiling.
A tall man with ramrod posture stood up in the back and said, “I have a question, but it’s not for you, it’s for everyone else. We need to get started on this, and I just want to see a show of hands of who’s willing to go out and fight.” He stuck his own hand up high and was quickly followed by every man, woman, and child in the village doing the same. Then he turned to Adrian and said, “Ok, now that that’s settled, General Bear, what do you want us to do and when do you want us to do it?” The crowd murmured in approval.
Adrian let them go on for a moment and then raised his hands for silence. The crowd quickly settled down, and for a brief moment, it was dead quiet. “Here’s the plan…”
MARCH 10, EARLY AFTERNOON
Adrian counted the men. Ninety-seven able-bodied men with whatever arms they owned were in the town square. Nearly half were from outlying farms outside the village, but dependent on it in one way or another. Adrian addressed them, “Here’s the drill: we’re going to break up into five groups, each with a captain and a lieutenant. I’ve already selected the captains. They will immediately begin to train their groups. These ten captains are all solid leaders, some with previous military training. They will choose their own lieutenants from among their men. Every man’s name has been placed into a hat. The captains will take turns drawing names at random and calling them out. As your name is called, fall in behind the captain who called it. At the end of the process, I may switch some men around to even things out in terms physical fitness or fighting skills. I want each group to be as evenly balanced as possible. When that’s settled, you’ll go off and train in separate areas. At the end of the second day of training, your captain will choose one of you to be his lieutenant. Any questions? Okay, captains line up, pass the hat back and forth, and start calling out names.”
Adrian then walked over to the women’s group. Addressing them, he said, “I count forty-four able-bodied women. You’ll be under the command of Colonel Fremont. She will organize you however she sees fit. Once you’re organized, I’ll be in temporary command as your drill instructor. When the training regimen is underway, Colonel Fremont will take over full command again and continue the training. She will choose the captains and lieutenants in whatever manner she considers best. Colonel Fremont, you are in command. I’ll return in an hour to begin the training.”
Linda spoke. “General Bear, may I have a word with you?” She lowered her voice so that only Adrian could hear her. “Really, Adrian? Colonel? You only made captains of the men, and—” Adrian interrupted her. “Yes, Colonel. You will be acting autonomously; you will not have the benefit of counsel or a higher leader to turn to during battle. Your rank is higher than the men’s because they will have those two advantages and you will not. You’re going to make hard fast decisions without anyone to help you make them. You will be entirely on your own. These women need to know that you have a higher rank because you command a higher rank, given the situation that you and they will be in. Believe me, when the fighting starts, they will trust you with their lives, and they want to believe—have to believe—that you can be trusted; that you won’t do something stupid that will get them killed without reason. They’ll be watching you like a hawk in this training phase, and if you don’t act the part, they’ll get scared and won’t fight half as well. If you have to, fake complete confidence for their benefit.” Adrian didn’t add that he was doing the same.
Adrian took two steps back and snapped a salute to Linda, turned on his heel, and marched back over to the men. She watched him walk away with mixed feelings of doubt and confidence. She knew his advice was right; she would have to hide her doubts from her troops.