Phoenix Rising pr-1 Read online

  “Perhaps, but you can understand, I am sure, that of all the skills needed for survival, a writer’s skill contributes the least.”

  “What are you planning to do here?” James asked.

  “We are establishing our base here,” Karin added.

  “Firebase Phoenix,” Bob suggested.

  Karin smiled broadly. “What a great name!” she said. “Yes, this is Firebase Phoenix.”

  “All right, so tell me. What happened to the president? What happened to Congress?”

  “As far as Congress is concerned, Ohmshidi dismissed Congress, and the Supreme Court, so they were already long gone,” Jake said. “And as far as the president is concerned, that cowardly bastard is hiding out somewhere.”

  “Or he’s dead,” John said.

  “No such luck,” Deon put in.

  As the others continued conversing among themselves, Bob walked over to the Huey and looked at it.

  “What do you think?” Jake asked.

  “I thought the Army retired the last Huey thirty years ago.”

  “They did. We stole this one from the museum.”

  “And put it back in flying shape. You must have some pretty good maintenance men.”

  “They’re the best.”

  Bob looked up at the rotor head. “That’s not the original drag brace. But evidently it held, all right. What is it? Off a five-forty rotor head?”

  “A five-forty rotor head?” Jake asked.

  “This is a D model. The C model and the Cobra both have five hundred forty rotor systems. Slightly different.”

  “Yes, we took the drag brace from a Cobra,” John said.

  “That’s what I thought. Looks like you did a good job of adapting it.”

  “You seem to know your helicopters,” Jake said.

  “Well, I certainly know the UH1-D model,” Bob said. “And probably just about every other one you saw in the museum.”

  “Were you an Army aviator?”

  “Yes, I have a little over six thousand hours, thirty-six hundred hours in one just like this. I flew three tours in Vietnam, and I taught maintenance test flight procedures at AMOC in Fort Eustis. Chief Warrant Officer-four, retired.”

  Jake extended his hand again. “Major Lantz, and I didn’t get a chance to retire. Ostensibly I’m still on active duty since I never got any orders relieving me. We are all in the same boat. Karin is a captain, an Army nurse, the rest are sergeants.”

  “Welcome to Fort Morgan,” Bob said. “It’ll be good to have neighbors again.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When Bob, James, and Jerry returned to The Dunes after their visit to Fort Morgan, they found that all the women in James’s house were in a condition of shock and fear. Becky was lying on the couch and the other women were gathered around her. She had a black eye and a split lip.

  “What happened?” Bob asked.

  “We’ve been robbed,” Ellen said.

  “Robbed? How did that happen?”

  “Four armed men came through the gate,” Ellen said. “When they found out we were living here, they broke in to the house and took as much as they could carry from the pantry and from the freezer.”

  “They also took the propane tanks,” Cille said.

  “We have no food or electricity,” Gaye added.

  “What happened to Becky?”

  “We don’t really know,” Ellen said. “She had gone with Sarah, so they weren’t here when the men came. It wasn’t until after the men left that we found her.”

  “You found her?”

  “She was down by the swimming pool. She was lying in the road and at first we were afraid she was dead. But she came to, and we helped her back. We asked her what happened, but she can’t remember.”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Bob asked.

  “Walking on the beach with Sarah,” Becky said.

  “Where is Sarah now?”

  “I don’t know,” Becky said. “I don’t even know how I wound up at the swimming pool. One minute I was walking on the beach, and the next minute Ellen and Cille were asking me how I feel.”

  “We are a little worried about Sarah,” Cille said.

  “Maybe more than a little worried,” Gaye said.

  “I’ll go look for her,” James offered.

  “Was there anyone down at the fort?” Ellen asked.

  “Yes. And that reminds me,” Bob said. “Becky, why don’t you come with me? One of the people in the helicopter that landed down at the fort is an Army nurse. I think maybe she should look you over.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “You were knocked out, weren’t you?”

  “I guess I was. I don’t know why else I would be lying in the road next to the swimming pool.”

  “That means that, at the very least, you have a concussion,” Bob said. “I think it would be good for her to look you over.”

  “All right.”

  “If you and James are both going to be gone, I think I should stay here with the women,” Jerry said.

  “I think that’s probably a good idea. Why don’t you go over to my house and look in the top drawer of the chest of drawers in the bedroom. I have a P-thirty-eight pistol there, with a full magazine.”

  “Right,” Jerry said.

  “Becky, do you feel up to walking down to the golf cart? We’ll take that down to the fort.”

  “I think so,” Becky said. She sat up, but when she tried to stand, she fell back on the sofa. “I don’t know, maybe I can’t.”

  “Tell you what. We’ll set you in a kitchen chair,” Bob said. “I’ll hold the back and Jerry can take the legs. We can get you down the stairs that way.”

  Cille brought a chair over and they helped Becky onto it. Then the two men carried her downstairs, all the way to the golf cart. She was able to move from the chair to the golf cart on her own.

  “I think I’ve got enough charge left to get us there and back,” Bob said as he put the cart in gear.

  “Jake!” Deon called down from the top of the wall. “It’s that warrant officer and some woman, coming up on a golf cart.”

  “Wave them on in,” Jake said.

  Deon was standing on the north parapet of the fort and he waved at the two on the golf cart, inviting them in.

  Jake and Karin went out to meet them.

  “Hi, Bob what brings you back so quickly?” Jake said. Then he noticed Becky. “Good Lord, what happened?”

  “She doesn’t know, exactly,” Bob said. “But while we were here visiting, some men broke into our place. They took all our food and our propane. After they left, the women found Becky unconscious on the road near the house. I remembered that the captain here was a nurse.”

  “Yes, I am,” Karin said. “A nurse, I mean. None of us have rank anymore.”

  “I was wondering if you would take a look at her.”

  “I’d be glad to. Becky, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Becky replied.

  “I’m Karin. Bob, why don’t you get down and let me drive her into one of the casements so we can have a little privacy.”

  “All right.”

  “You say you were robbed?” Jake asked, after Karin drove off.

  “The women were, yes. They took almost all of our food.”

  “Look, we don’t have much, but we could let you have a case of MREs. That’s not going to last you very long, though.”

  “We’ve got a couple of people who are pretty good at hunting and fishing,” Bob said. “We’ll get along all right.”

  “They’re good at it, you say?”

  “Yes, very good. With wild game and fish, and seaweed for our vegetable, we’ll survive.”

  “I wonder if you would be interested in something,” Jake said.

  “What is that?”

  “Moving in with us. I know that you are probably much more comfortable in your own house right now, but I’ll be honest with you, Bob. If you have been holed up here for the last
six weeks or two months, you don’t have any idea what is going on out there. You are likely to have more unwanted company, and they might do more than just rob you. If you are with us, you would at least be safe.”

  “That is something to consider,” Bob said. “Let me take it up with the others. If it were just Ellen and me, I would take you up on it in a military minute. But I don’t want to abandon the others.”

  “I understand,” Jake said. “Talk with the others and see what they say.”

  “I can see the advantage we might have in moving in here, for security purposes,” Bob said. “But what would you get out of it?”

  “The more of us there are, the more security that is for all of us,” Jake said. “And, to be honest, I’m intrigued by the fact that you say James and Jerry are very good at hunting and fishing. We have enough food and MREs to last us a few weeks, somewhat less if you join us; then we are going to have to supply our own food. I see there is chickweed here. That’s edible. And, as you say, seaweed.”

  “Across the road there are some scuppernongs,” Bob said.

  “Scuppernongs?”

  “It’s a wild grape. It’s good raw, and it makes a really good jelly.”

  “We’ve brought seeds,” Jake said. “And they are pure seeds, not hybrid. I plan to get a garden in as soon as I can. If it stays warm long enough, we’ll have some homegrown vegetables in six to eight weeks.”

  “Sounds good. What have you got?”

  “Several kinds of beans, peas, corn, beets, carrots, cucumber, radish, spinach, cabbage, lettuce, tomato, onion, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, watermelon, and cantaloupe. I also have a dozen potatoes that we can use the eyes from.”

  “I can make a great possum stew with potatoes, onion, carrots, and jalapeño peppers,” Bob said. “I can’t wait until the garden grows.”

  Karin drove the golf cart back out into the central area then. Becky was crying, quietly. Bob looked at her quizzically, but Karin got out of the cart and signaled for Bob to step away from the others.

  “What is it?” Bob asked.

  “She was raped,” Karin said.

  “Raped?” Bob gasped. He looked back toward her. “Those bastards!”

  “She doesn’t remember it, but while I was examining her, she told me she felt pain there. She isn’t wearing panties under her dress, though she insists that she had them on when she and the other girl left. She isn’t wearing them now, and there are abrasions and semen residue.”

  “Damn,” Bob said.

  “She’s very upset, as I’m sure you can understand. She’s likely to go through some serious depression over the next several days, at least until she learns whether or not she was made pregnant.”

  “The poor girl,” Bob said. “Oh, what about her dizziness?”

  “She had a concussion, that is for certain,” Karin said. “But I don’t think she had a skull fracture. I treated her lacerations. If she keeps the wounds clean, they shouldn’t give her any trouble.”

  “Thanks, Karin,” Bob said. He walked back over to the golf cart, then spoke to Jake. “I’ll talk to the others soon as I get back,” he said. “For now, we have a girl missing. James is out looking for her.”

  Becky was quiet for half of the trip back from the fort. Then she spoke, so quietly that Bob could barely hear her.

  “Don’t tell the others,” she said. “Don’t tell the others I was raped. I’m so ashamed.” She began to cry.

  “Becky, you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of,” Bob said.

  “I don’t know whether I do or not,” Becky said. “I don’t even remember it. God in heaven, how can you be raped and not even remember it?”

  “It is traumatic amnesia,” Bob said. “It’s not that uncommon. I’ve experienced it myself.”

  “But you won’t tell? Promise that you won’t tell.”

  “I won’t tell,” Bob promised.

  When Bob and Becky returned, James was back with Sarah safely in tow.

  “She was all the way down to Ponce de Leon,” James said. “She had no idea we were looking for her.”

  “How is Becky?” Sarah asked.

  “She’ll be fine,” Bob said. “The nurse doesn’t think she has a skull fracture. But she did have a concussion and doesn’t remember a thing, so don’t be pestering her with questions.”

  All the women clustered around Becky, anxious to do whatever they could for her. While they were talking, Bob brought up Jake’s offer to the two men.

  “I don’t know,” James said. “It’s going to be hard to get Cille to leave this house.”

  “Not as hard as you think,” Cille said. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s about time we let them in on it as well,” Bob said. “We sure aren’t going to make this decision without them.

  “You got that right,” Jerry said. “Go ahead, tell them.”

  “Ladies,” Bob said, “I have a proposition for you.”

  Bob told them then who was down at the fort. He told them also that he trusted the men and women he had met down there.

  “I trust them too,” James said. “There are some folks that, as soon as you meet them, you just know what kind of people they are, and these are good people.”

  “Here’s the thing,” Bob said. “They have invited us to come down there and live with them.”

  “What?” Gaye said. “You mean live there, in the fort? Have you ever been there?” Gaye wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. “Even in the summertime it’s cold there. Nothing but brick, stone, and cement.”

  “Yes,” Bob said. “That’s because it is a fort, literally, and that’s what makes it attractive. There won’t be any repeat of what happened here.”

  “If you ladies decide that you are willing to do this, I’ll make you a promise,” James said. “I’ll build us some place comfortable for us to stay. There is enough building material scattered around here from the hurricane that I don’t expect it will be very hard to do.”

  “I’ll say this,” Ellen said. “I sure don’t want a repeat of what happened to us this morning.”

  “I’m for it,” Cille said.

  “If we have a vote in this, I’m for it as well,” Sarah said.

  “Of course you have a vote,” Bob said. “Right now you are one of us.”

  “Becky? Becky?” Sarah asked. “What do you say?”

  “I’m for it,” Becky said.

  “Gaye, it’s up to you,” Ellen said.

  “No, it isn’t up to me,” Gaye said. “If we are voting on this thing I have already been outvoted.”

  “I guess you have been,” Bob said. “But I really don’t want to force anyone into anything that they don’t want to do.”

  “You aren’t forcing me,” Gaye said. “Everything you are saying makes sense. If we are down there, inside a fort with a bunch of other people, then it has to be a lot safer there than it would be if we stay here. I’m for going as well.”

  “Alright, let’s load up James’s truck with whatever we think we might use.”

  “Are we going to take any of the lumber, or building material?” Jerry asked.

  “What do you think, James?” Bob asked.

  “I don’t think so, yet,” James said. “We’ll just take whatever personal items we are going to need on this trip. It’s going to take several trips to get what we’ll need to start building.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  After Bob Varney and his group moved down to Fort Morgan they, along with Jake and the Phoenix group, began to build a place to live, using as their scheme a motel-like plan. Jake and James drew up the design of one long, single-story structure divided into individual cabins.

  It was decided that each of the three married couples would have their own cabin, Karin and Julie would share a cabin, Becky and Sara would live together, and Jake and Deon would be roommates, while John, Marcus, and Willie would share the final cabin.

  They began the structure by using one of the massive s
tone walls of the fort as their back wall. Next, they built a floor that extended twenty feet out from the wall, and stretched one hundred and five feet long. After they finished the floor, they put in a wall at each end and separated the floor into seven compartments, each protruding fifteen feet out from the stone wall of the fort. This left five feet for a front porch. Next they put on the front wall, with a door and window for each unit, then a roof, with a chimney from each unit. Finally they built a fireplace in each room.

  Throughout the entire construction project, James and Jake worked very well together, James, because he was a natural handyman, and Jake, because such work was a product of his youth. He had built many wood-frame structures, even as late as last March when he had gone back home to visit his folks, and helped in a barn raising.

  While the men were building their quarters, Bob and the women put in the garden. Ellen was a particularly good gardener, as was Julie, and they took charge of the layout and planting.

  Fort Morgan—Wednesday, August 22

  So far all of the building material came from the scrap lumber and residue left by Hurricane Ohmshidi hauled down to the fort in James’s truck. But midway through the process James announced that he didn’t think he had enough gasoline to make another trip.

  “We can make our own gas,” Bob suggested.

  “Ha! How, by eating a lot of beans?” John asked.

  The others laughed.

  “No,” Bob said. “During World War II a lot of people converted coal, charcoal, or wood, to a gas that would power their vehicles. John, you are a good mechanic and James, you can do just about anything. You two could build a gas converter.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you are talking about,” James said.

  “No problem. I’ll show you how to do it.”

  “You?” Ellen said. “Bob, you can barely change a lightbulb.”

  “That’s true,” Bob said, “but when I was in the Army, I taught aircraft maintenance. I couldn’t do it, you understand, but I could teach it. And I could teach John and James how to make a gas converter. It isn’t all that efficient, but it will work.

  “Could it work well enough to drive the truck up to Fort Rucker?” Jake asked.

  “Yes, I suppose so. But why would you want to go up there?” Bob asked.