Chapter 5B

Judy Bondi walked over to Tuck, who was, as he'd been doing most of the morning, sitting talking to Gamelin. "Can I walk up to the top of the ridge?"

Gamelin said something, and Tuck waved where Judy wanted to go. "Warum?" Gamelin said.

That didn't need much translation, Judy thought.

"I'll be careful, I just want to walk some. You've got guards up there. I'm just going to the top."

Judy was impressed; Tuck said a dozen words to Gamelin who nodded, then motioned up the hill, bowing slightly to her.

She started up and was surprised that it was the sergeant who went with her. At least, he let her go first, which Judy thought, had to mean something. She wasn't sure what, but it had to be important to some degree.

They reached the top of the ridge and Judy saw one of the troopers a few feet away, nestled down in a pile of rocks. He grinned at her, grinned again when the sergeant frowned at him.

She was a girl, she thought. These are men. Hormones! It was really different from home, she thought. At home, boys might once have whistled, but that was pretty much dead. Now they just stared. Judy had never had anyone whistle at her, but she'd had a few guys stare at her. It wasn't comfortable at all, she'd found.

But here? There seemed to be a sort of good humor involved; it was hard to explain. They'd look, and then laugh at themselves for having looked. It was very odd, very odd indeed.

That and this guard had turned back without having to be told, slowly scanning the wash beneath them, then the hillside above it.

It was deliberate, coldly and competently done. The guard might have stared at her for a second, but he stared at the open space in front of them long and hard. Minutes, not seconds. Several minutes!

Judy saw the movement out of the corner of her eye again. She mentally cursed, but marked the spot in her mind, before looking again. This time, it wasn't hard to see. A man was running along the bottom of the wash. Not just jogging, but running full out.

She nudged the sergeant, who looked startled. She pointed and he looked. Almost at the same second, the guard saw the runner too and said something, pointing in the same direction.

The sergeant stepped back over on the camp side of the ridge, waved. Pumping his arm up and down. Down in the camp, there was a rush to get their weapons. On the ridge, two men Judy hadn't noticed appeared and bellied down in rocks.

"Bleib!" Vosper told her, pointing at her feet.

That pretty much had to mean stay down, she thought. The sergeant gathered up one of the men and they started down the ridge, running a whole lot faster than Judy would have thought safe.

It was interesting. He'd told her to stay, but he also hadn't gestured for her to return towards the camp. Judy glanced back and saw a dozen men coming up from the camp, including Tuck and Gamelin. So, something not immediately dangerous.

Vosper was down at the bottom of the ravine now, talking to the runner, long before the others got up to where Judy was standing. Gamelin looked, asked a question and got an answer from the man who was on guard. Judy understood maybe one or two words; it was frustrating.

Gamelin lifted his weapon over his head, parallel to the ground. From the distance came a short pip, followed by three long blasts on the sergeant's whistle. Gamelin pumped his weapon three times, and Judy could see that the men still back in the camp had dispersed to cover.

It took a half hour for the sergeant and the other man to come up the thousand or so feet ridge they were on. A ridge the sergeant had descended in a few minutes.

Judy had long since gotten bored with the inactivity. Across the wash, on the top of the other ridge, a light began to flash. Gamelin watched it, so did one of the other men who'd come up.

Vosper and the man he'd gone to fetch finally arrived. The young man was young and blonde like the rest of them. He had a bloody rag on his arm; a long wicked looking scratch on his cheek. He stood talking to Gamelin and Vosper, obviously reporting formally. Judy would have been content to have understood one word in a hundred, as it was, there were a few she thought she recognized, but nothing she could make sense out of.

Gamelin talked to Vosper for a few minutes, the two of them off to one side.

Tuck met Judy's eyes. "This soldier was the one they sent south yesterday to get horses for us. He didn't get there."

Judy blinked. "You understand them?"

Tuck laughed. "I saw him leave yesterday, I asked Gamelin about it. He's back, without the horse he left on. I'd say he didn't make it and didn't bring back any horses. Right?"

Judy grimaced. Well, there was that! But she was curious; Tuck hadn't said how much of what he'd heard he'd actually understood.

Gamelin came over to where she and Tuck were talking. Judy didn't understand all of what he told Tuck, but she understood enough. Time to move again, this time, to the northeast.

The sergeant stood on a small pile of rocks, and was wiggling a mirror. Judy thought that was odd and asked Tuck about it.

"Obviously, you were never a Boy Scout."

Judy wanted to hit him.

"Elementary signaling, 101. A mirror with a hole in it. You stand so that you can see the sun through the hole, and at the same time, see where you want to send the message. You wiggle the mirror. Dots and dashes. They sent out patrols earlier today... now Gamelin's recalling them."

Judy couldn't put a finger on it, but there was a certain bleakness in Tuck's expression. He doesn't think they will all make it back, she was sure.

A half hour later, they were heading down the hill, all of them, except the guards.

Judy checked her watch. It was nearly three in the afternoon; she had no idea what they were going to do.

There was another long discussion between Gamelin and Tuck, and then Tuck came to tell all of them what had been said.

"Tomorrow, expect an early start. Right after dawn. Everyone will need to get to sleep early, have all their gear packed and ready to go.

"I wanted to drop some of our gear, but Gamelin won't hear of it. You guys will still spend most of your time mounted. Hopefully, calluses will grow in time."

"They sure did when I took horseback riding!" Judy said, remembering. "Lydia and Becky learned at the same time as I did."

"Good, you're going to need them. Elspeth and the Flowers women are going to be hurting."

Judy remembered Elspeth being sick and the reason why. It's not something they teach ten-year-olds. Is riding good for you when you're pregnant? Judy rather doubted it. How could she ask? She sniffed in derision at her own concerns. What else could Elspeth do? Walk while the rest of them rode? That wouldn't work! The reason they would be mounted would be so that the group could travel faster.

Judy wasn't sure why she felt uneasy as the evening progressed. Lydia and Becky had come down to the main fire. Lydia had her guitar and she played it, while the rest of the school party at the fire sang along with her. Well, almost all of the rest of them. Mrs. Flowers and Sarah came and ate, didn't sing and both went back to the tent without doing more than grunt when Tuck reminded them they had to be ready to leave first thing in the morning.

The guitar and Lydia's songs fascinated Gamelin's men. One of men sang something, and after a bit Lydia was able to pick her way through the right chords. There were a lot of songs after that, and from some of the expressions, one or two had been mildly bawdy. Lydia seemed to understand, grinned and vamped the music. It was wildly popular with Gamelin's men.

Finally everyone had gone up to get some sleep, except for Judy and Tuck. Gamelin was leaning against a rock, a light snore that brought a smile to Judy's face. Vosper had gone up the ridge to check the guards.

"Now what?"

"They sent this guy, Hestius is his name, to buy some horses. Yesterday afternoon he told Gamelin, as he was riding, he saw a man stand up in the desert, drawing a bead on him."

"Drawing a bead?" Judy asked, not understanding.

"Aiming at him. Survival, Judy, is as much luck as skill. Hestius was riding with his rifle ready, his finger on the trigger, and his weapon nearly lined up on the bad guy. In spite of the surprise, he got off the first shot, and killed the guy.

"Normally, you make allowances, but Hestius seems to be more level-headed than most. I'll believe that he hit the guy square in the brisket."

"Brisket?" Judy asked.

"Square in the chest."

"Oh." Once again, there it was, reality. There were men here who were a danger to them. Who would, Judy was sure, try to kill them. It was long since past time to get over being shy about what was happening and what needed to be done to stop it.

"They let off with rifles; he says four of them were shooting at him. He was creased on the side, the cheek. Which actually isn't all that bad of shooting, when you consider the weapons. He said he had two pistols that he fired; he says he thinks he hit one man, and drove the others to cover. Another good sign: he didn't claim to have killed two men with his pistols.

"His horse went down, but he didn't slow down, just boogied on out of there at flank speed."

"And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, we go north. They have a town or small city northeast of here, up on the Mogollon Rim. They call it Outpost. I'll tell you true, Judy. I don't think this Outpost place can hold the bad guys. Gamelin says there are only a few thousand regular soldiers there, another couple thousand summer militia."

"Summer militia?" Judy asked. She was frustrated; it was bad enough not to know Gamelin's language, but not understanding Tuck when he was speaking English made her want to scream with frustration.

"What we would call the reserves or the National Guard. They report for a couple of months duty every couple years. They come during the summer, between planting and harvesting."

A few minutes later, he was sitting, hat down over his eyes, not far from the entrance to the tent.

Mrs. Flowers came up and stood next to Judy. "Do you think he's asleep?"

"I hope he is," Judy replied honestly.

"We need to talk. Come, please. I even made tea!"

Judy was surprised to see that Sarah was tending a small primus stove; a miniature stove the size and shape of a tin can. Sarah poured hot water from the little stove into a teapot and Mrs. Flowers swirled the water around. "It's going to be chilly tonight. Some hot tea will feel good against the chill."

Judy grimaced. She'd grown up in Phoenix and was comfortable with hot temperatures. And it wasn't that chill, even here in the mountains. Hot tea had never been something Judy liked. A minute later she sipped a bit of it; it was harsh and bitter, a little acrid. Who needed this?

"What are they going to do to us?" Mrs. Flowers asked her.

Judy shook her head. "Tuck is intent on keeping us safe. One of the men who are helping us got shot at yesterday. Tomorrow we're going to head away from the trouble as fast as we can go!" Judy was proud that she had stood up for Tuck and Gamelin. They were trying to help them and deserved all the assistance in that they could get. Mrs. Flowers had been a negative asset since the trip had started.

"He's a man. Men always have... desires."

Judy wanted to laugh. Earlier she'd thought about the same thing. Tuck might have desires or he might not; mostly he wanted to keep them safe. Gamelin's men had desires, but they were either in awe or afraid of Tuck's charges. They were certainly careful around Gamelin.

Mrs. Flowers topped up Judy's tea. Judy could just shake her head. The tea was strong enough to keep her up half the night, when what she really, really needed was a good night's sleep. Mrs. Flowers lifted her cup, "Well, to keeping us safe, then."

Maybe, Judy thought, at long last she's going to pay attention to what's going on, be a help instead of a pain. Nonetheless, she didn't do more than sip; Mrs. Flowers was no better at making tea than at anything else she did.

It took a few seconds, before Judy realized Mrs. Flowers was staring at her. As if she was waiting for something. Judy glanced over at Sarah, who promptly looked away.

Judy pursed her lips. Was Mrs. Flowers up to something? What? Anything at all would be stupid! She felt the pinch of a headache between her eyes; she absently rubbed the bridge of her nose.

For a second she felt odd, buzzed and excited. Gamelin was cute! Then her stomach rolled over and it was all she could do to keep from being sick. Judy started to lift her head to say something, except Mrs. Flowers caught her, her hand covering Judy's mouth, and at the same time, twisting away the tea mug. Judy struggled, but her muscles didn't work. Her limbs were made of lead; her head was filled with wildly spinning fireworks.

Gamelin woke with a start. His head was splitting with pain, his mouth tasted awful. A few feet away from him, Vosper was sprawled, entirely too close to the fire for Gamelin's comfort. He reached out, and hauled on the sergeant's jerkin, pulling him back.

With a jolt, Gamelin remembered where he was, what he was supposed to be doing. With a curse, he grabbed his carbine, only to curse six more times, as he leaned over and was sick into the rocks.

He felt an arm on his shoulder and turned to look. It was Tuck, his face green and haunted. "Something's up!"

Gamelin nodded. Something indeed was! He hadn't remembered being sleepy; he couldn't imagine Vosper falling asleep when he saw Gamelin dozing.

Around him, the camp was quiet -- entirely too quiet. He reached out and shook Vosper hard. The sergeant groaned, but didn't wake up. Gamelin shook him harder and Vosper's eyes opened. The look of anger and disgust on Vosper's face was enough to make a man's heart quail with fear.

Tuck went running towards the tent of his young charges while Gamelin and Vosper got the troopers awake. After a few were up and about, Gamelin headed to where the other's tent was.