Phoenix Rising

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Do we have a name?” Julie asked.

“A name?” Clay replied.

“This group,” Julie said. “Do we have a name?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of a name,” Jake said.

“We’ve got to have a name,” Julie said.

“All right. Do you have a suggestion?

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do have a suggestion,” Julie said.

“What?”

“I think we should call ourselves Phoenix.”

“Phoenix?” John asked.

“Julie explained. “I mean the United States of America, the country we all took an oath to serve, is dead as far as most people are concerned. Except us—we’re going to make it rise from the ashes.”

“Yeah,” Deon said. “I like it.”

“Phoenix,” Clay said. He nodded. “It does have a ring to it.”

“I like it,” Karin said.

“Me, too,” Marcus added.

“Alright,” Jake said, smiling. “Hereinafter, we will be known as Phoenix.”

“Well then, in that case we should change our radio call sign from Mickey Mouse to Phoenix,” Willie suggested.

“I agree,” Jake said. “From now on my call sign is Phoenix One.”

“I’ve got somethin’ else to bring up,” Clay said.

“Now’s the time to do it,” Jake replied.

“Major—I mean, Jake, I know you said we aren’t in the Army anymore. But the truth is, while we were in the Army, we had a standard operating procedure. And even if we aren’t in the Army, I think we still need some structure. I mean, all you have to do is look at what’s going on all around us now to know that we must have some SOP. I know you don’t want to be a major anymore, but how about you taking charge, as a civilian, of our group?”

“We are all together in this,” Jake said. “I don’t want to presume.”

“You wouldn’t be presuming, and I agree with Clay,” John said. “We do need some SOP, and you are the one who started Phoenix, so I think it only makes sense that you be our leader. We can still remain on a first-name basis.” John smiled. “I sort of like calling officers by their first names.”

“I concur,” Marcus said. “Jake should be our leader.”

“Count me in,” Deon added.

Willie, Julie, and Karin quickly added their own support for the idea.

“Alright,” Jake said. “I accept. Now, what do you say we get back out to the post and get busy?”

“Go out to the post and get busy? Jesus, give the man a little authority and he goes all power mad on us,” John said.

The others laughed.

The Dunes, Fort Morgan—Tuesday, July 30

“Ellen, where is my typewriter?” Bob Varney asked.

“It’s in the very back of the storeroom off your office,” Ellen said. “Way in the back. Why do you ask?”

“I’m going to write,” Bob said.

“I really . . .” Ellen started to say that she really thought it would be a waste of time, but she stopped in midsentence. She had lived with this man for over forty years and she knew him inside out. And she knew that he needed to write, and if truth be told, she needed it as well. She needed a sense of continuity to her life, and having her husband write books, whether they were ever published or not, was that continuity.

“I really think that is a good idea,” she said.

Bob leaned over to kiss her. “Thanks for not trying to talk me out of it,” he said.

It had been almost thirty years since Bob Varney last used a typewriter, but he had kept his old Smith-Corona portable all those years, keeping it in good shape, and keeping it in fresh typewriter ribbons. Retrieving it from the back of the storeroom, he opened the case, then blew and brushed the dust and cobwebs away. That done, he rolled two pieces of paper into the typewriter, using the second page as a pad against the platen because when he took typing in high school his typing teacher, Miss Sidwell, had told her students to do that.

Using the lever, he counted down eleven double-spaces before he typed:

Lilies Are for Dying

by

Robert Varney

Chapter One

John Hughes had what is called a very structured personality. Every morning he had one soft-boiled egg, a dry piece of toast, and half a grapefruit. He drove to work by the same route every day, and crossed the intersection of Greer and Elm at exactly the same time. That’s why he was passing Elmer’s Liquor Store just in time to see Elmer being shot.

“Charley, listen to this and tell me what you think,” Bob said to his dog. He read the opening paragraph aloud. “Is that a grabber?”

Charley was lying under the desk with his head on Bob’s foot. This was the normal position for writer and dog when a book was in progress. But that was the only normal thing about the setup. Bob was writing this book on a typewriter, and he knew this book was going nowhere.

His agent had told him that he need not waste his time writing any of the three books that remained on his contact, but his agent didn’t understand. Bob didn’t write because it was his job, Bob wrote because he had to write.

He returned to the book, listening to the tap, tap, tap of the keys, remembering that sound from years ago and, oddly, being comforted by it, as if it could take him back to another time and another place when things were as they should be.

As he continued to write through the morning, the pages began to pile up on the right side of the typewriter, and he remembered that as well, recalling the sense of satisfaction he got from watching the pile of pages grow. He had mentioned to his father once how he enjoyed watching the pile of pages grow, and his father, who had been a farmer, compared it to watching a crop being “made,” as in “Are you making any cotton?” It’s funny, Bob didn’t realize until now, how much he missed watching the pile of pages grow. Seeing the word-count number increase at the bottom of the computer screen was never the same thing.

From his office he could see the Gulf through the front windows and Mobile Bay through the back windows. He saw a boat about a mile offshore and figured it must be a fishing boat. Was he catching fish to eat? Or to barter? Probably a little of both, he decided.

“It is good to see you writing, again,” Ellen said, coming up behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders.

“You do realize that it is a complete exercise in futility, don’t you?” Bob asked.

“Not futile,” Ellen said. “It doesn’t matter that it isn’t going anywhere, it is restoring a sense of balance to our lives. It gives the illusion that everything is as it was, and I need that. We need it.”

Bob lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “We were born twenty years too late,” he said.

“Why do you say that?”

“If we had been born twenty years earlier, we would more than likely be gone by now, and we would have left the world while it was still sane.”

“What’s going to happen to us, Bob?”

“Nothing,” Bob said. “We’re going to ride it out and, in the long run, we’ll be okay. Just don’t be planning any trips to New York or Chicago. Or even into Gulf Shores,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll start my romance novel,” Ellen said.

“Ha! You’ve been saying you were going to write a romance novel for the last forty-five years.”

“I know, but other things kept coming up,” Ellen said. “This time I’m going to do it, for sure. I’ve got a bunch of yellow tablets and a bunch of pencils. And the time to do it.”

“Good for you,” Bob said. “You start it. If you need help, just ask.”

Fort Rucker—Wednesday, August 1

Jake and Karin were the last two to leave Ozark and head out to Fort Rucker, the others having left two days earlier. They were halfway to the post when they saw a pickup truck with a trailer, crossways on the road, blocking any possibility of passage.

“I wonder what this is?” Karin said.

The truck and the trailer were both filled with furniture, bedding, boxes, barrels, and crates.

“Looks like someone is trying to move all their belongings,” Jake replied as he stopped the car and put it in park. “My guess is they were trying to turn around and got hung up with the trailer. I’ll see if I can help.”

Getting out of the car, Jake started toward the pickup truck. That was when someone stepped around the front of the truck. The man was wearing black pants, a black T-shirt, and a black headband. He also had a holstered pistol strapped to his belt. That didn’t concern Jake—many had taken to wearing pistols since the total collapse of the republic. Jake was also carrying a pistol, but it was under the flap of his shirt and so not immediately visible.

“Can I help you?” Jake asked.

“Oh, yeah, you can help me,” the man replied.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, it’s like this. You see this truck? It don’t have enough gas in it to even get me back to Ozark. But seein’ as you was drivin’ your car, it looks to me like you do have gas. So what I’m goin’ to do is, I’m gonna give you a can and a rubber hose.” He put his hand on his pistol and patted it a couple of times. “And what you are going to do for me is siphon out all the gas that’s in your tank and fill this can.”

Jake pulled his pistol and pointed at the man. “No, I don’t think so,” he said.

“Whoa, I didn’t know you were carrying,” the man said, holding both hands up, palms facing Jake.

“Apparently not. Now, I’m going to ask you real nice to get that truck off the road and out of my way,” Jake said.

To Jake’s surprise, the man dropped his hands and chuckled. “You don’t seem to understand what’s at stake here,” he said. “I don’t know if that pretty little woman back there is your girlfriend or your wife, but if you don’t do what I told you to do, my friend is going to put a bullet through her head.

Jake turned back toward his car and saw that Karin was now out on the road, standing just in front of a man who was holding a pistol to her head. This man, like the one who had confronted Jake, was wearing black pants, a black T-shirt, and a black headband.

“Better do what my friend says, mister, unless you want to see this woman’s brains on the highway.”

“You would shoot an innocent woman over a can of gasoline?” Jake asked.

“Oh, yeah, you can count on it,” the man replied.

“I’m sorry, Jake,” Karin said. “He must have been lying in the ditch alongside the road. I didn’t see him come up.”

“Let her go,” Jake said, pointing his pistol at the man who was holding his gun to Karin’s head.

“Ha! Is that pistol supposed to scare me?” the man replied. “You’re a good sixty feet away from me—I’m only about six inches away from your woman. You really think you are good enough to shoot me, without hitting her?”

“How about those Kentucky Wildcats?” Jake asked.

“Say what?” the man with the gun replied.

“I like the cheerleaders,” Jake said.

“Man, are you crazy or what? Can’t you see I’ve got your woman here? Now are you going to fill that gas can or . . .”

At first Karin was confused by Jake’s comment; then she smiled as she knew exactly what he meant. Suddenly Karin did a backflip, vaulting completely over the head of the man who was holding a gun on her.

“What the . . . ?”

That was as far as the gunman got because as he turned toward Karin, Jake took his shot. Blood and brain matter spewed out from the entry wound in the temple.

Because Jake had turned to take his shot, his back was now to the man standing in front of the pickup truck.

“You son of a bitch!” the man yelled.

Jake whirled back on the would-be gasoline thief, shooting him between the eyes even as the man was bringing his own pistol up.

“Are you all right?” Jake called back to Karin.

“Yes,” Karin replied. She looked down at the man who had been holding his gun on her; then she walked up to Jake. “It took me a second to figure out what you were saying.”

“You figured it out quickly enough. You did well.”

“Were they soldiers, do you think?” Karin asked.

“There are no soldiers anymore,” Jake answered.

Karin knew that Jake did not want to think that he had shot two men who may have, just recently, served in the same army with him, so she didn’t press the issue any further.

“I’ll get the truck out of the way,” Jake said. Climbing in behind the wheel, he turned on the key and saw that the gas gauge didn’t even come up to the E mark.

“I hope there’s enough fuel to get it off the road,” he said. He hit the starter and the engine kicked over. He drove it off the road and down into the ditch. Then, exiting the truck, he climbed back up to the road.

“What are we going to do with them?” Karin asked.

“What do you want to do with them?”

“I don’t know. Somehow it doesn’t feel right to just leave them both lying in the middle of the road.”

“All right. I’ll get them out of the road,” Jake promised.

Grabbing one of them by his feet, Jake dragged him down into the ditch and left him by the truck. Then he returned and did the same thing to the other man. He started to go through their pockets to see if they had any identification, but stopped short because he realized that he didn’t want to know who they were.

Returning to his car, he slid in behind the steering wheel and glanced over at Karin. She looked a bit queasy so she reached over to put his hand on hers.

“You did well,” he said again.

“Jake, has it come to this?” Karin asked. “Is it going to be dog-eat-dog?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Jake said. “But dogs run in packs. And we have our pack now.”

Karin smiled, wanly. “Phoenix,” she said.

“Phoenix,” Jake repeated.

Three miles farther on Jake and Karin saw two people lying alongside the road. Jake slowed down enough to get a good look at them. It was an old man and a woman.

“Jake, stop.” Karin said. “I have to check on them.”

Jake stopped and Karin, getting out of the car, hurried over to the couple. She squatted down and felt for a pulse in each of them. “The woman is dead, but the man is alive,” she said.

Both the man and the woman had been shot.

“Sir, what happened?” Jake asked.

“The sons of bitches took my truck,” the old man said, straining to talk. “They took my truck and trailer. Had all our belongin’s on it.”

Jake looked at Karin and she shook her head, to tell him that the man didn’t have long left.

“They shot Suzie,” the man said. “Then they shot me. Dressed like pirates they were, all in black. The sons of bitches.” He coughed a couple of times, then took one last rattling breath.

Karin tried his pulse again.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“Those murdering bastards,” Jake said. “If I was feeling any twinge of regret before, I don’t now.”

“What are we going to do with them?” Karin asked. “We can’t just leave them here like we did the other two. After what the other two did, they can lie out on the road until the buzzards pick them clean as far as I’m concerned. But these folks are innocent. They didn’t do anything to bring this on.”

“I’ve got an entrenching tool in the car,” Jake said. “We sure can’t give them anything like a proper burial, but you’re right. We don’t need to leave them out here, exposed to the elements.”

Forty-five minutes later Jake and Karin stood over a fresh mound. Jake buried them both in the same grave. It kept him from having to dig two graves, but he was fairly certain they would have wanted to be buried together anyway. Before he buried them, he took the old man’s billfold. It had pictures, a driver’s license, but no money. But it didn’t matter that there was no money, since money was worthless anyway. And at least now, he knew who they were.

“Mr. Theodore Fuller, Mrs. Suzie Fuller, I don’t think I’ll be able to find any of your next of kin to let them know what happened to you, but I hope there is some comfort that you didn’t leave this world without someone knowing your names,” Jake said. “I’m sorry your lives ended up like this. On the other hand, you did go out together, and you’ll be together for all eternity now. And truth to tell, with what the rest of us are facing, you may well be the lucky ones.”

Karin reached over and squeezed Jake’s hand.

“You might be right,” she said. “They might be the lucky ones.”

“Come on, the others will be worrying about us. Let’s go see if John and Marcus have found a helicopter we can put back together.”