“We . . . are . . . Americans.”
He fully expected to be shot in the next moment and he would have taken that bullet with no regrets.
But it didn’t happen.
Instead the man picked up the pistol Noah had dropped and then took a step back. He then made a motion toward the trees and another of them came near.
“There were only four places you could have come out, Mr. Gardner”—the man was helping Noah to his feet as he spoke—“and we covered them all. If we’d gotten here sooner maybe we could’ve—”
“I don’t understand. Who are you?”
“Virginia Ward sent us,” the man said. “We’re here to take you home.”
Chapter 66
That word home meant something different to all six of the survivors, but for each one it was also just another treasured thing from a past to which they could never return. The nearest they could come was a place they’d only heard about from Molly Ross, but never seen. That was their destination.
Over the first fourteen hundred miles they traveled in short, guarded segments from one safe house to the next. In these caring hands, after several days of good food and rest and medical care it wasn’t too long before all were on the road to a full recovery.
Virginia Ward’s men had left them near Cheyenne, then. From that point on, Thom Hollis knew the way.
They rode northwest as far as the main roads would carry them, divided up and hidden among the sleeper compartments of a convoy of long-haul truckers sympathetic to the cause. The final leg of the journey was taken on horseback and later on foot from the last place of friendly sanctuary just south of the Bighorn Mountains.
Though the weather was mild, the terrain was as harsh as it was unspoiled, and without a savvy woodsman for a guide Noah and the others would have never made it through the rugged wilderness. Even experienced hikers, hunters, and adventurers stayed away from this part of the high country. Many who’d wandered into the region in the past had been lost, never to be seen again.
Of course, that’s why the settlement was founded where it was; why Molly and her mother had chosen this patch of remote, forbidding land as their place of last refuge for the Founders’ Keepers. Though the route to get there was hazardous, in a place like this her people might be safe from the worst of the world outside.
Noah hadn’t known what to expect upon his arrival, and at first glance there wasn’t much to see.
From a hill overlooking the valley ahead he was able to count only a handful of simple dwellings and a broken dirt path that wound between them. At this distance the man-made additions to the woods were nearly invisible among the tall aspen and evergreen trees. Hollis came up to his side and pointed out nine more structures, for a total of thirteen.
At the end of this last long day of travel, now with only a final half mile to go, Noah sat to rest and think for a while, and Hollis sat beside him while the others went on ahead.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said, after a time.
“You’re sorry for what?”
“I should have kept her from going back into that place. I should’ve protected her.”
Hollis smiled at that. “One thing I learned about Molly a long time ago. Once she set her mind to something, wild horses couldn’t drag her off it. You couldn’t have stopped her. Hell, I tried and I couldn’t stop her, either. Just put yourself at ease about that, at least. She did what she felt she had to do, like always. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.”
Noah looked over at him. “That God business, that’s new for you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And what brought this on?”
“Had my eyes opened up, I guess, in the course of those last few days. I finally heard His voice.”
“You heard a voice.”
Hollis nodded.
“And this was when you were running a fever of what, a hundred and five?”
“Nevertheless.”
“But we lost this one, Hollis. Molly’s dead, and so are a lot of other good people. We accomplished nothing at all in Pennsylvania. Everyone who was chasing us before, as far as we know they’re all still after us. I don’t really see any answered prayers here. If this is God’s will, I don’t understand it. That voice you heard might as well have been coming from hell.”
“A month ago I might’ve said the same thing,” Hollis said. “Come tomorrow, you might feel different.”
It was nearly sundown and, after a few more minutes of quiet reflection, they got to their feet again and continued on. At the border of the clearing the path became gradually wider, graded even and cleared of a late-season snow.
First they passed a small log cabin with firelight warming its interior in the dusk, a wispy curl of wood smoke from its chimney dispersing in the light breeze. Next came what appeared to be the beginnings of a general store, and a closer look through its picture windows confirmed it was exactly that. The shelves inside were filled with provisions: canned foods, fuel and lamp oils, medicines, dried meats, burlap bags of seed and grain, soaps and other essentials, batteries, and a cache of ammunition and some hunting and trapping needs.
At the midpoint of the main thoroughfare stood a longer, taller building, solidly and artfully constructed, with wide doors and a heavy brass bell hung beneath its awning. It could have been a meeting hall, a school, a storm shelter, a church, or a fortress, depending on the needs of the day.
Some of the small, simple homes appeared to be occupied; others were dark. As he walked along he saw a checkered curtain pull aside behind a front window. The face of a child came close to the glass. She smiled and gave a little wave, and as he returned the greeting Noah was touched by the honest, innocent nature of the exchange. This little girl had greeted a stranger with no concern at all for his intentions; if he was here, he was a friend. Surrounded as she was by her family and her neighbors, within these protected borders there wasn’t much for her to fear.
Noah stopped walking then, and Hollis soon came up beside him.
He was looking at a small, handsome cottage near the end of the path just ahead. Snow had settled in highlights on the shingles, the railings, and the windowsills, like the frosting that puts the final touches on a gingerbread house. There were in-ground doors to a root cellar by the stairs to the porch, a lean-to in back for tools to tend the grounds, and facing east, a sunroom with a wooden bench swing. A low split-rail fence enclosed a small plot to the side where a flower garden might be planted in the spring.
As Noah looked closer he saw that there was a large dog lying by the steps to the front door. The animal sat up abruptly as it noticed the two men, and then after a moment it reclined again. It seemed as though it had been there for a long while, patiently waiting for someone to return.
“Here we are,” Hollis said. “This is your place now. That’s what she would have wanted.”
Noah had seen this fine little home and its grounds before, of course, in a pencil sketch pinned up on Molly’s bedroom wall in that loft long ago in New York City. An artist’s rendering will sometimes endow a beloved thing with such an abundance of romance that its subject, once seen in person, can’t help but disappoint. But this place was every bit as beautiful as the dream of it she’d once drawn, sight unseen.
• • •
He awoke alone in her bed to the sounds of conversation and the smells of fresh coffee and frying bacon in the next room.
When he paused at the doorway he had to blink a time or two to be certain of what he saw. Hollis was by the fireplace tending the meal, and at the table nearby sat Virginia Ward.
“Hi,” Noah said.
“Hi.” She slid a stack of envelopes toward him. “I brought you some mail.”
“How the hell did you find us here?”
“It wasn’t nearly as hard as it should have been,” Virginia said. “That’s one of the things we need to talk about right away.”
Over breakfast the three of them discussed many things. Chief among the
se was the unexpected aftermath of their mission to Pennsylvania. Noah had said that they’d lost this one, that nothing had been accomplished there, and at first that had seemed to be true.
Though the evil powers-that-be had been poised to make the most of any threat that might have materialized, when it was all over the nationwide terror alert had been quietly rescinded and no hint of the incident at Garrison Archives had yet appeared in the traditional press.
Nothing had happened—that was their story and they were sticking with it. All evidence to the contrary was being mocked and shouted down as usual. The blackout seemed complete. And it would have stayed that way, except for one small thing.
Despite every attempt to stop it—including a government-ordered shutdown of the entire domestic Internet for several hours that fateful night—Molly’s final video had found its way out of Garrison via the modem that Lana had set up, trickling out over a single analog phone line. That one copy reached the public download section of an old-school dial-up bulletin-board system in Michigan, and from there it began to multiply and spread.
For every copy that was scrubbed away ten more soon reappeared. Home-brewed DVDs of it began to turn up on store shelves, inserted into the cases of popular movies. News of it passed from inbox to inbox, whole websites sprang up devoted to it, and finally, the top alternative news site on the Internet linked to it, and then it was everywhere. Now, weeks later, the impact was not only hitting, it was growing stronger every day.
Meanwhile, the so-called mainstream press was following their usual script. Hired experts were marched before the cameras to debunk the grainy video as a fake. Molly and her cause were once again being vilified, laughed at, and denounced. For a short time the video itself was actually blamed for inciting the recent wave of violence—even by the President himself—but that blatant lie was soon withdrawn when it became clear that the people weren’t going to buy it. The old script didn’t seem to be working as well this time around.
Calls had begun to flood the switchboards of elected representatives and the demands to know the truth were rapidly becoming too numerous for the politicians to ignore. After witnessing the brutal murder of Molly Ross at the hands of a government-sponsored killer, a growing audience of people from across the political spectrum were digging deeper, learning the facts behind her simple message of liberty, and hearing in it all an urgent call to action.
There was suddenly great power in this nonviolent uprising that had been begun by the Founders’ Keepers. And with Molly now gone, it was beginning to seem that this power was falling into the hands of Noah Gardner.
“I don’t think so,” Noah said. “I’m just not the right man for the job.”
“Read your mail,” Virginia replied, passing the stack across.
The first letter was from his attorney, Charlie Nelan. He’d met with Ellen Davenport and quickly freed her from any fallout of her involvement over the recent weeks. She’d like to come for a visit—in fact, Charlie added, they both would, as soon as things settled down a bit.
After sharing his condolences he also noted that Noah’s father’s estate might take a while to settle but there was a minor sum of money that could be made available immediately if it was needed. This interim fund amounted to a little less than $90 million.
All the other letters were from politicians and the power brokers behind them.
Some were household names from both major parties, two were outspoken libertarians of long-standing influence, others were up-and-coming voices in the very beginning of their careers. They weren’t exactly asking for endorsements, or offering them; it was still too soon to judge what the benefit of that would be. But the elections were coming, and it couldn’t hurt to talk. They just wanted to let him know that they were on his side—tentatively, and privately, of course—and to open a line of direct communication for the future.
As he was finishing his reading Hollis retrieved the coffeepot and brought it to the table. “We’re going to need to do some new construction,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of new people, and I hear there’s more on the way.”
“What about this dog?” Noah asked. “I’m not really a pet person.”
Having eaten his breakfast earlier, the animal had found a comfortable perch near the back window. He was a handsome beast, looking more like a well-groomed wolf than any domesticated species. To say he was aloof would be a serious understatement, though. Unlike most dogs in Noah’s experience, he didn’t seem to crave much contact with anyone.
“His name’s Cody, but don’t expect him to answer to it. He was Molly’s through and through. He’ll likely come to tolerate you after a spell, though,” Hollis said, refilling their cups as he spoke. “In my case, it took six months or so. Just keep your hands away from his mouth and don’t ever look him in the eye, and you should be fine.”
“I know a family that I’d like to see settle here, if it’s what they want,” Virginia said. “A mother and three kids. They’ve just lost their dad.”
“Right now I don’t know how we’re going to buy the materials for all these homes,” Hollis said, “but we’re not going to turn anyone away. God’ll provide, I’m sure.”
“We can afford it,” Noah said. “Go and buy whatever you need.”
“These folks give a lot of charity, but they’re very reluctant to take it.”
“It’s not charity, then. Tell them they can pay me back down the road.”
The front door had been left wide open to let in the early morning air. The dog had begun to growl and they turned to see that a large man had quietly walked up onto the porch. He stopped at the doormat, removed his hat, and nodded a greeting.
“What can I do for you?” Noah asked.
“Are you Mr. Gardner, then?”
“Yes.”
“George Pierce sent me,” the man said.
In a flash both Hollis and Virginia had stood and drawn their pistols, sending their chairs clattering to the floor behind them.
“Please,” the man said, showing himself unarmed. “I’ve just come here with a message, nothin’ more.”
“I’m going to count to ten,” Hollis said, “and mister, it’s gonna go quicker than you think.”
“Mr. Pierce, he says he calls a truce,” the man said, rushing his words. “He says there won’t be any trouble, long as you don’t make none for him. He says if you want, he can even send up some protection. Hell, if I could track you down, somebody else sure can, too.”
Hollis thumbed back the hammer on his pistol, but Noah raised his hand.
“Hold on.”
“Hold on?” Hollis said.
“That’s what I said. Let’s let him finish.”
“Thank you, sir. Now, Mr. Pierce says he’s going to do you a service, and he don’t expect nothin’ in return. You’ve got one big problem left out there lurking, and him and me, we’re going to make it go away. When you see what we’ve done for you, you’ll know, it’s a show of good faith. After that he’d like to meet you in person, sometime in the future, wherever and whenever you say. That’s all in the world that he asks.”
The room stayed silent for a while. Through his excessively humble manner, this man seemed to be making an effort to appear less threatening than his physical presence might otherwise suggest. Several rough, black letters were tattooed across the backs of his fingers. Taken together, they spelled out “Y O U R N E X T.”
Noah took a deep breath, and then said, “Okay.”
Pierce’s man nodded and smiled, backed up a few steps with his eyes on the guns, gave Virginia Ward a good long look, up and down, and then turned and walked away toward the tree line.
The three of them went to the door to watch this stranger until he’d disappeared into the woods. During this time the dog came up next to them and sat there, close to Noah’s side.
“What did you just do?” Hollis asked.
Virginia answered for him. “He did what he had to.”
“There might be a h
undred more of his men out there right now,” Noah said. “As of today the only defense we’ve got is you two, and anybody else here that can handle a gun.”
“That’s just about everybody,” Hollis said. He’d stepped to the side window to scan the rest of their surroundings. “These aren’t city people here, and they’re ready to fight for what’s theirs—”
“Well, I’m not quite ready for another war today,” Noah said. “Tomorrow, maybe, but not today. You heard him, it’s a truce, not an alliance. It’s never going to be that, but I’m not going to get us all killed before we even get started. Now come on, let’s sit down. I need some help to think this through.”
They all took their seats, with Hollis and Virginia across from him at the table.
Of course, he knew what Molly would have done. She would have stood her ground no matter the cost rather than make any sort of a deal with the devil. But Molly was gone, and if seeing things only in purest black-and-white had killed her, then purity be damned. And as he thought about it, he’d realized what he owed her. For a lot of his life he’d had no direction, but now he found he wanted more than anything to see her work and her vision for the country survive. If getting there meant getting his hands a little dirty for the greater good, maybe he’d just have to accept that.
Virginia Ward reached across the table and patted his arm.
“Welcome to politics,” she said.
• • •
Noah called a meeting of all the residents, including the brand-new ones and the surviving Founders’ Keepers, to be held that evening at the central hall. He’d asked Lana and Tyler to find a way to stream a live video of the proceedings; there was apparently quite a growing audience out there, in this nation and in others around the world, waiting to see and hear what would be next.
That night, when the fireplaces were lit to warm the place and they’d all been gathered together, he stood up and assured them that he didn’t plan to speak for very long. There was much work and planning to be done, but that evening wasn’t the time.