E j deen, p.21
E. J. Deen, page 21
“Great,” Grady said, sliding off the barstool. “I could use a little news.”
The second the words were out, Coon-ass stopped him in his tracks with a lethal look and a large hand planted firmly in the middle of Grady’s thin chest. Grady glanced at Zach for an explanation.
“I’m afraid you can’t use any of this for news, Grady. For now, you’re just along for the ride.”
He lifted his hands in agreement. “That’s cool.”
“Coon-ass here will require your word on it.”
Grady gave the cajun a critical look. “He has it.”
Zach nodded and turned back to Franklin. “Seen Tadpole?”
Franklin shook his head.
“Damn.” Zach sighed. “Well, if you do, tell him…. Tell him I’m sorry. I tried to find him to say goodbye, but….” He ended on a shrug of defeat.
Franklin nodded. “I’ll let him know. Meanwhile, do you need anything for your trip?”
“Yeah. Some of that good stuff behind the counter would be great.”
“You got it.” Franklin pulled a bottle out of his stash and passed it across the bar. “Just promise you’ll bring Grady back in one piece. I don’t know why the old has-been wants to go along and get himself into danger.”
“Who you callin’ a has-been?” Grady grumbled. “Besides, a good reporter is always willing to sacrifice himself to danger for the truth, even if I don’t get to tell anyone else about it.”
“Don’t worry, Franklin. He’s safe with me,” Zach assured the bartender. “But if he comes back with his tongue cut out….” Zach paused and glanced at the silent cajun standing next to him.
Franklin glanced at his old friend. “Maybe you should reconsider.”
Grady shook his head. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world. Haven’t been out of this town in months. It’s time I did some travelin’ before my network crumbles. Get the old bones movin’ again. Get the juices flowin’, the brain to thinkin’. Maybe there’ll be something worthy out there. Might not come back for a few months, though,” he warned his longtime buddy.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep a candle in the window for you,” Franklin promised.
Zach gave a curt nod. “Let’s get going then. I don’t want to waste any more time. Don’t forget about Tadpole,” he called to Franklin.
Franklin nodded and waved them off.
At the door, Zach paused and turned back to cast one last sweeping gaze over the room. An odd feeling crept over him, a sense of melancholy settling somewhere in the region of his gut. He had the distinct impression he would never see this place again. A feeling so strong that he was almost afraid to leave.
His instincts weren’t usually wrong.
Ignoring the sentimental angst, he turned away from the door and headed for the Hummer. For once, his instincts could go hang.
15
Now that he was going to see Doc, Zach was inexhaustible. They drove all through the night, and the sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon when they reached their destination. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.
“I’ll be damn,” Zach whispered to himself as he parked the Hummer and got out. “He was almost in my back yard, and I didn’t even know it.”
“Didn’t make it any easier to find you,” Coon-ass grumbled.
Grady was still with them. He’d gleaned enough from their conversation during the drive that he wasn’t about to let go now. As he put it, “This is news in the making. I’m not goin’ nowhere.”
Coon-Ass still hadn’t explained why Doc had moved his facility, and the cajun’s silence made Zach even more anxious to see his friend and find out what was going on.
“Mammoth Cave, huh? Isn’t it a little obvious?” Zach wondered aloud, stepping around to the back of the Hummer to collect his canteen, his pistol, and a few other items.
“It’s easier to defend. There aren’t many people in this area. Guess they weren’t smart enough to figure out what they had. Perfect shelter. Some people are afraid of caves, though.” The cajun shrugged. “But Doc has another place in mind for his research.”
Zach was curious but didn’t ask. He knew Coon-ass would leave the explaining to Doc.
Grady stood beside the two men and stared at his surroundings in awe. “Haven’t been here since I was a boy,” he commented when he noticed Zach’s amused glance. “It seems so different. Empty. Natural.
The way it was before man arrived to screw everything up.”
Zach grinned as he peered into the back of the Hummer. His canteen seemed to be missing, and he couldn’t figure out what had happened to it. Thinking maybe it had gotten bucked around a little and moved out of place, he reached down and yanked the tarp away from the bottom of the Hummer. He pulled back in alarm when a slight figure shot up out of the truck-bed. The boy flew past him but only made it as far as Coon-Ass before he was halted by a huge paw swooping down and locking onto his throat in a death grip. The boy squealed in alarm and kicked his legs out in an attempt to defend himself, his skin already beginning to turn purple. All his attempts to escape were in vain. Coon-ass held him so far above the ground that his feet found no leverage. He didn’t have a chance of escaping the cajun’s grip.
“It’s Tadpole,” Zach growled, his brows slamming together in a frown of disapproval. “Put him down.
He’s harmless.”
Coon-Ass obliged. Rubbing at his sore throat, Tadpole warily put a few yards between himself and the cajun. His face was slowly returning to its normal shade of color, but he couldn’t quite meet Zach’s eyes. The kid knew he was in big trouble.
Zach did what was expected of him and lit into him with all the gusto of an indignant father. “What the hell do you think you’re doing stowing away like that? You could have been killed. Coon-Ass doesn’t usually wait for an explanation before he finishes the job.”
Tadpole glanced up at the rugged looking cajun and took another respectful step away from him, obviously not wanting a repeat performance. “You’re the man who was lookin’ for Zach.”
Coon-Ass merely stood staring at him, his arms folded across his chest. Tadpole glanced away but still couldn’t look at Zach. Instead, he looked at Grady and grinned. The black man couldn’t keep from offering a smile of comfort. He liked Tadpole too well to be angry with him for a simple thing like stowing away. Besides which, he knew why the boy had done it. To be near Zach. He would risk
anything to be near Zach. Everyone knew that. Everyone but Zach, anyway.
Zach crouched down on one knee to look the boy in the eye. “You knew I wouldn’t approve of this, Tadpole, so why did you do it?” When the boy didn’t answer, Zach added, “This isn’t a game, you know. This is dangerous business.”
Tadpole’s response shocked all three men. “I’m not a kid anymore,” he screamed, his voice breaking and peaking in a high-pitched shriek as he unloaded on them. “I’m a man! When will you believe that?
When will you stop treating me like I’m a girl?”
After he’d vented, he whirled on his heel and started to run, but he didn’t get far. Zach lunged forward and grabbed him by the jacket, instantly bringing him to a halt.
“You’re nine years old, Tad. You are a kid. Whether you like it or not.”
The boy turned back to stare him full in the face. One look was all it took. Zach understood everything, and he couldn’t be angry with the kid anymore. Why hadn’t he seen this before? Had he been so
absorbed in his own personal wars that he couldn’t see the war raging in Tadpole?
Zach silently drew the boy into his arms. Tadpole pressed his face against Zach’s shoulder, each hand clenching a fistful of jacket as if the gesture could impart the message he couldn’t bring himself to say, the reality of what he was feeling. He was afraid Zach would leave one day and never come back to him. That’s why he’d stowed away in the Hummer. That’s why he’d been in the mountains looking for him. He was acting out what words couldn’t express, what he’d never been able to admit to Zach.
Because he was a kid. Because he wanted to be a kid. He wanted the life he could never have.
Tadpole’s bravado had slipped. He was afraid. He was alone. He needed someone. And Zach was that someone he had chosen to need. It was the first time the boy had given him any sign whatsoever that he wanted the childhood that had been taken from him, and it touched Zach in a way that nothing ever had before. Because this boy was a mirror of himself. This boy had patterned himself after a man he considered a hero, had cloaked himself in a toughness he didn’t always feel. He was vulnerable. Just like Zach was vulnerable. They couldn’t help it. They were human, both of them. All of them. Whether they wanted to admit it or not, they were all human.
“I had to do it, Zach,” the boy sobbed into his jacket, his face buried in the heavy leather. “I couldn’t let you leave again without me. Don’t you understand?”
“I understand, Tadpole,” Zach murmured, his big hands stroking the boy’s back in a gesture of comfort.
“I understand now. I admit I didn’t before. But I do now.”
Tadpole was unmindful of the tears streaking through the dirt on his face. It didn’t seem to matter that he was crying in front of three grown men, acting precisely the way a kid should. He wasn’t fighting the natural inclination anymore. He seemed resigned, almost defeated. The battle he’d waged for so many lonely years was lost. He wanted to be a kid so desperately. It was evident in his eyes, in his tears, in his fear. Zach wished he could give that childhood back to him. If only he had the power to give him that gift, to make the world a place where children could be children again. But it seemed so damn impossible.
Tadpole raised his head to look into Zach’s eyes. “You won’t send me back, will you?”
Zach was so choked up he was unable to speak. There was the smallest glimmer of hope on Tadpole’s face, so tiny that anyone who didn’t know the boy wouldn’t even catch it. But Zach saw it, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
“If you let me stay, I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll do anything you say. Honest, I will,” Tadpole pleaded.
Zach studied the distant horizon for a moment. Not that he really needed the time to decide. He simply needed a minute to get hold of his own feelings, a vulnerability and love he hadn’t felt in eons, so overpowering that he was afraid it would spill out of him in a tidal wave of emotion. Not in front of the other men, he silently willed himself.
He didn’t need to think about it. He’d made his decision the moment he’d seen the boy’s tears. Tad could stay. From now on, if he liked. It was time. Time to give back a little of what the boy was so willing to give him. Hell, it was past time, long overdue. No matter what the cost, whatever it took, the boy would know he always had a home with Zach.
“You can stay.”
Tadpole’s entire face lit with joy. He started to give a triumphant cry to celebrate his elation, then remembered one of Zach’s unbreakable rules and clamped it off. Zach had taught him the importance of being silent in the woods, and apparently the lesson had stuck.
Zach smiled and reached out to ruffle Tadpole’s cowlick. The kid would do okay.
The smile Tadpole returned was beatific, full of love, gratitude, and hope. But it was the hope that really touched Zach. He wished he could borrow a smidgen of that hope from the kid, just enough to see him through a few years.
“Come on. We have places to go and people to meet,” Zach said, standing up and glancing at the other men.
Tadpole danced around his feet, his exuberance contagious. Grady gave Zach a smile that let him know he’d handled the situation well, and even Coon-ass seemed to approve. Somehow, it made his decision easier.
Tad helped unload the Hummer, and together the small group made their way down into the enormous mouth of the cave. Zach was surprised to find most of Doc’s army inside. Coon-ass dispatched a man with a stilted nod, and a few minutes later, Doc appeared. Zach and Doc greeted one another like brothers, with a strong embrace and a few thumps on the back.
“Damn, I thought you were a goner,” Zach said.
Doc looked puzzled.
“I went to the swamp,” he explained.
Doc nodded his understanding and reached out to clamp a hand on Zach’s left shoulder in a gesture of reassurance, but he pulled away when Zach winced. The memory of the pain was still clear in his mind.
His wound hadn’t healed well and still carried some tenderness. Doc insisted he remove his shirt so he could take a look.
“Where the hell did you get this?”
“I had another run-in with the Pirates. I patched it myself. What do you think?”
“Not bad. A little jagged, but not bad considering,” Doc admitted. He glanced up and focused on Zach’s face. “Are you okay? Something about you seems….”
“Changed?” Zach grinned. “You too. Must be something in the air.”
It was true. Doc was different. There was a new fervency about him, almost like a fever. He seemed excited, intense, more animated than Zach had ever seen him. Almost like he had a secret he couldn’t wait to tell.
“So, what happened? Why the sudden move?” Zach asked.
“The Pirates were stumbling around out there in the swamp, getting too close. I’ve been worried about it for a long time. For months, I had scouts out looking for a better place. We’d been thinking about coming here, anyway. The cooler atmosphere is better for my research.”
“Say no more. I understand.” The research was the most important thing, for all of them.
Doc glanced at Grady and the boy, naturally curious. Zach introduced the two and explained why they happened to be with him. Doc welcomed them like he would welcome any friend, trusting them
without hesitation simply because Zach did.
“Come and meet the others. We have a lot to tell you,” Doc urged, leading them deeper into the cave.
“You sound like something monumental is about to take place.”
“It is.”
Doc’s answer was perplexing, but he didn’t explain himself just yet. Zach followed him down into the yawning earth in a silence of wondering. Deep into the ground, they arrived in the enormous great room of the cave, where a motley assortment of men waited. Zach was surprised. There were so many of them. Much more than Doc’s own army. What were they doing here? Where had they all come
from?
Zach glanced at Doc, waiting for an answer to his unspoken question.
“Come on. I’ll introduce you around,” Doc said, stepping up to the nearest man. “This is Leo Halstrom.
Ex-pilot for the Air Force,” Doc explained while the two men shook hands. “The best in his field. He brought in twenty-five of the men who worked under him, most of them pilots and mechanics.”
Doc moved on to the next man. “Jim James, the survivalist. I’m sure you remember hearing about him.”
The man took his hand in a firm grip. Zach could tell by the glint in his eyes and the power in his handshake that he was a hothead. He had trouble with hotheads. They were always dangerous.
“James brought in a hundred men with him when he came. Downright demanded to be a part of this deal,” Doc said.
“And what is this deal?” Zach wanted to know.
“I’m getting around to it,” Doc promised, turning to another man. “This is our newest member.
Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Jordan Quinn.”
“I remember you. I saw you on the news during the revolt. You were a big part of the new black awareness movement.”
The black man nodded and gave him a friendly smile. Zach shook his hand, liking him instantly.
“Jordan is ex-marine. And from what I hear he’s a damn fine weapons expert,” Doc went on.
They all seemed to be ex-something. Ex-something was all they could be, considering there was no government, no society left to be a part of anymore.
“Unfortunately I didn’t bring anyone with me. But I think I can get together a small group of brothers,”
Jordan told him.
Zach gave Doc another puzzled glance.
“I guess it’s time I explained,” he mused.
“That would be….” Zach broke off and stared in dumbfounded surprise when he spied a familiar face in the crowd. She was just standing there, watching him, as if drinking him in with her eyes. All he could do was stare back.
Doc noticed the direction of his gaze and was quick to respond to it. “This is Burgess. She’s the only female among us, except, of course, for Serena. She stumbled across us when we were in the process of moving. Actually, Serena found her and threw a fit until we agreed to bring her along with us. I figured Serena needed a mother figure, and Burgess fits the bill. She’s been a great asset to us in many ways.”
Burgess stepped a little closer to Zach, her eyes raking over him in open assessment. “Your hair is longer,” she observed, reaching out as if to shake his hand.
He ignored the hand she offered. “Yours is shorter. You chopped it off.”
Burgess let her hand drop back to her side, and Zach watched a fleeting emotion cross her face. She looked hurt, maybe even a bit angry. Still, she refused to break her gaze. It was that bravado he’d seen before, the bluster she hid behind to keep people from getting close. “It was getting in the way.”
“Looks like you did it yourself,” Zach commented. He didn’t mean it in an unkind way. Actually, short hair was very becoming on her, especially now that her face was clean. He’d never really seen it clean before. She was beautiful.
Burgess nodded and glanced away, obviously self-conscious now that he’d mentioned her hair. It was an intriguing transition. That flickering moment of defensive anger, a bite of self-confidence, only to melt into a shyness that didn’t seem to fit her. Could it mean something? Something that might actually wind up being enjoyable?
Doc watched them in open curiosity. “You two know each other?”
Neither one of them had the opportunity to answer. Just then, Serena came hurtling out of the group of men, squealing in delight as she threw herself into Zach’s arms.
