Chapter 18

The next night a single helicopter used the darkness and landed unseen on the Whitehouse lawn. It returned President Polk, Mrs. Polk, and former General, now trooper, Joshua Smith. Trooper Smith used the President's carriage to go fetch his young wife and three children. Sarah Beth was Joshua's second wife. His first wife had died during childbirth and the baby, a little girl, died the next day. The first thing that Joshua had noticed after the Band's military was the number of children he saw.

As a general he understood numbers and if there were this many children there was a reason. That reason he found was the superior health care. Having lost a wife and a child he knew better than most how important that was. Sarah Beth was just as quick to understand and in less than an hour they had gathered their most important belongings and were headed back to the helicopter. The Smith family's new life with the Band began when the helicopter lifted off and started the five hour journey to their new home.

While Joshua and his family were packing the President was putting my plan in action. First he drafted a letter to all of the men who were pushing 'Manifest Destiny.' His staff would spend a sleepless night making the many copies needed to lure all of these important men to the Whitehouse. Once he had finished the final draft a very tired President Polk retired to his bedroom.

Once the letters were sent all we had to do was wait until all the players were gathered for the big planning meeting. That's when we would spring the trap, and capture all of the unsuspecting men. Rumours of the Band were all over the place, from deadly heathens to heroes.

One thing we had accomplished was that lawbreakers from the United States no longer fled across the river looking for a haven. Our patrols now ranged from the Canadian border to the big spring in what would have been west Texas. The patrols were now a minimum of three squads and as many as six or seven in areas where we had regular problems.

Our biggest regular problem was without a doubt the Pawnee. With spring beginning I was looking forward to the birth of my first child, but spring also meant wagon trains headed west. Beth went into labour on the first day of March 1848. Two hours after she had begun a rider came in with news of a Pawnee attack on a wagon train. I was quickly informed that I would be a whole lot more help to the wagon train than walking circles and worrying over Beth. Jana and Mae grabbed our med kits and escorted me to a waiting helicopter.

In the helicopter I found Red Hawk and two squads of Red Hand's best commandos and all their kit. It was a short hop with the helicopter to the stalled wagon train. Red Hawk had the pilot get on the loud speaker and announced who we were. They still seemed like they were ready to shoot first and talk about it later, but having been in that same situation I understood how they felt. After we sat down a group of armed men came out to meet us. Red Hawk explained who we were and what we were doing there. As soon as they heard we had medical help they were like long lost cousins.

Mae and Jana started doing triage while I got four of the commandos to help me set up a place to work on the worst of the wounded. This included an alien made tent where I could work without everyone looking over my shoulder. My confidence in what I was doing had gone up by leaps and bounds after getting training from Narith and his people. One of the gizmos that they had given us was a suitcase size device that would put the person in suspended animation while I worked on them.

I had just got it set up when Mae sent me my first patient. Susie was a very cute, but very frightened ten year old girl with an arrow in her chest. Mae and I put her in the stabiliser and then we went to work. Mae had enough training to be a doctor on her own, but she would rather help me than be the doctor. That made her a top shelf surgical nurse.

We ran what amounted to a fibre optic camera along the shaft of the arrow. The arrow had passed through the top part of her left lung and embedded the head in the backside of her heart. After removing the arrow and using the laser to seal off the bleeders we were able to stitch up everything on our way out. It was not the first time for me to use the alien device on an arrow wound, but every time I did I was reminded of the old joke about the gynecologist putting the engine together through the tail pipe. In 1848 it was as close to magic as it possibly could be. Within thirty minutes we were bringing the girl out of stasis and putting the next patient under. Jana gave the girl a shot to help her with the pain while we worked on the next patient. That's the way it went for the next three hours. Jana patched three women and two men that had through and through wounds in arms and legs.

When Mae and I walked out of the tent after working on the last one we had most of the adults from the train waiting on us. We were swarmed with thank you's and atta boy's with one glaring exception. Susie's mother and father were there and they were not happy. Susie was one of seven kids and apparently they had already written her off. Me and Mae were accused of all matter of witchcraft. We were also informed that they would be leaving the girl.

I was just about to light into the bitch when I felt Jana touch my arm and then she lit into the woman, "That's fine! We'll be glad to take the girl back with us. She'll be better off being raised with educated and loving people." Jana turned to walk over to the girl.

"Now you just wait a minute!" the father said as he grabbed for Jana's buckskin shirt.

Mae handed me my katana knowing I was about to lose my temper, "Mister you touch her and you'll never touch another thing with that hand." I brought the sword up ready to act.

"She can't talk to me and my wife like that," the man hadn't noticed that the four commandos assigned to help with the wounded and over half of the men from the wagon train had hands on weapons.

I quietly whistled 'at ease' "You've given up on your daughter. Why don't you go on back to your wagon before you make your wife a widow."

I wasn't too sure what he was going to do, but finally his wife took him by the arm and they left for their wagon. I turned to the four commandos, "Let's get that tent down and back in the chopper." Mae had folded up the stasis unit and Jana had already taken most of med kits back to the helicopter.

Red Hawk came around when he saw the tent come down and with him was the Captain of the wagon train. Red Hawk wanted to know what we lacked being ready to go. I explained to him and the Captain about the little girl and the Captain just shook his head. Before the Captain could say anything Red Hawk raised his hand because he was getting something over his head set. He listened for a few seconds and then whistled our call to arms.

Jana had been close enough to the helicopter to hear the first radio transmission and she was already running toward us with our weapons and a small backpack full of extra ammo. Red Hawk took the four commandos that had been helping us and ran over to get them in position. "What is it Jana?" I asked as she ran up to us.

"Robert Mutu has spotted around thirty Pawnee headed this way." She handed Mae and I our M4's and two 'Alice type' backpacks with ammo. Mine had grenades for my launcher. We had just got the last of our patients in a safe place when the Pawnee stopped on the hill about two hundred meters out. Jana handed me the headset she was wearing, "Here honey, Red Hawk wants you."

Red Hawk asked me if I thought it would be safe enough for Robert to make a pass with his attack helicopter. I told him I thought so as long as they were at least seventy five meters out and he could run parallel to the wagons. I listened as Red Hawk gave Robert the orders. When I looked up trying to find Robert, Jana quickly pointed him out to me. We watched as Robert put his helicopter into a steep dive.

Mae laughed, "I sure am glad I'm not riding in the jump seat I'd be puking my guts out right about now."

Robert levelled off and opened up with the mini guns. The Pawnee were cut to ribbons. Apparently Robert had tried to spare some of the horses by coming in like he did, but it was still a mess. He circled and came back to hover right in front of the dead Pawnee. There were two down towards the end of his pass that had escaped with their lives somehow. They raised up and one even got a shot off before Robert cut the two of them in half. Red Hawk sent Robert back up to his patrol altitude and he and the commandos went out to check on the Pawnee.

At some point during the attack little Susie woke up. Mae heard her calling out and went to her. The first thing she asked was if she was in heaven. Her mother had told her she was going to die and she couldn't believe she hadn't. Mae explained what her mother had said and asked the girl if she would like to come and live with us. The girl pointed to the blue flag on Mae's right arm, "I can be in the Band?" Mae nodded her head, "Can I go to school there? I listened to dad teach my brothers but he said there was no reason for a girl to be able to read and write. I can but not very good."

Mae smiled at her, "You can learn to read and write and lots more. You can be any thing you want. Now lay back. Jana and I are going to take you to the helicopter. Are you hurting?"

Susie put her hand on the bandage on her chest, "Just a little bit."

"Well I'll give you a shot when we get in the helicopter." Mae went to the back of the wagon where Susie was lying, "Jana if you'll help me we can take her to the chopper." They let the end of the wagon down and slid the stretcher out. Jana held her end while Mae got out of the wagon. I helped Mae out and took the other end of the stretcher and we started for the helicopter.

Red Hawk and the Wagon Train Captain joined us when we were about half way there. The Captain thanked us again for our help as we slid Susie's stretcher in and locked it down. Red Hawk told the Captain to watch for the commandos replacements toward the end of the week. We got into the helicopter and while the pilot was getting ready to take off Mae gave Susie a shot for her pain. We lifted off and headed back to Ft. Leavenworth.