“Heinrich!” Jackson shouted as the man materialized from the brush. “How good to see you!”
The men shook hands and grinned at each other. For the first time in a very long time, Colonel Buhrman was at a loss for words. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “So you two know each other?”
“Colonel Jackson was with Grisha when he and I reunited after a ten-year absence.”
“Yeah, and in the middle of one of the coldest damn nights I’ve ever experienced,” Jackson added. “My piss froze before it hit the ground, I shit you not.”
“I believe you. Heinrich, have your sergeant tell him about Refuge,” Buhrman said.
Sergeant Jerry Titus filled Jackson in on the story and location of Refuge.
“Okay, Del,” Benny said. “What do you think we should do?”
“Link up with the Dená, and very carefully. Right now they’ve got itchy trigger fingers.”
“Why don’t we wait for the Dená to make a move and then we hit the Russians in the ass?” Jackson watched as Buhrman thought about it.
“That’s good, Benny; that way we don’t have to worry about anyone getting hit by friendly fire. But do you think the Dená will do something offensive or continue to maintain their defensive position?”
“They started this revolution because they were tired of taking shit from the Russians. I’ll give you two-to-one odds they hit the Russians within the hour.”
Buhrman’s grin seemed wolfish. “No bet. I remember that poker party down in the Arizona no-man’s-land. You only give odds when you have an ace in your hand.”
“You’re never going to forgive me for beating you in poker, are you?”
“I’m never going to forgive you for cheating me in poker!”
They both laughed at once.
“Bring your guys in; I’ll let my people know. Glad you’re here, Benny.”
“Likewise, Del.”
Colonel Buhrman quietly called his people together.
67
Battle of Delta
When Jerry’s squadron attacked the Russians, everyone at Refuge had cheered, hugged one another and some even danced in circles. Then the planes were abruptly gone. Night fell and the firing slackened and died.
They slept fitfully, those who could sleep at all.
Magda felt bereft. Of all her squad only she and Anna had made it back. The artillery had blown seemingly safe rocks into blizzards of shards that sliced people to unidentifiable bits.
And the air raid by Jerry’s squadron was still generating animosity.
“What the hell!” Sergeant Kasilof had screamed. “They call that an attack? Even the Russian Air Force could do better than that!”
“Well, you’re damned lucky that you’re wrong, Kenny,” Magda snapped. “We haven’t yet seen a Russian plane that wasn’t ours. And that’s because of the 117th!” Finally she also slept.
Chris Anderson woke all of them. “Hey, Pelagian wants to talk to us, right now.”
Everyone had slept in their clothes. They groggily followed him toward the center of Refuge. Smoke stung Magda’s nostrils.
People were cooking breakfast over small fires and the aroma of hot food made her realize how incredibly hungry she was. She wondered if terror could suppress one’s appetite since she hadn’t been at all hungry yesterday.
The huge space contained so much life it seemed to breathe on its own, Magda thought. Two Russian tanks parked side by side, tread to tread, blocked the main entrance, their cannon pointing outward. Behind them the crowded vehicles and groups of people flowed to the sides and back into the dimness of the cavern’s depths.
Nearly everyone had brought all their possessions and some of the “camps” looked quite comfortable. The cries of babies echoed back and forth. She noticed a long line at the only two latrines.
Sure glad they remembered that, she thought.
A long band of orange ribbon marked the area the military needed for operations. It wasn’t crowded with people; it held brown-painted cases stenciled with a two-headed eagle and full of 7mm rounds. There were also olive-drab cases stamped with usa that held mortar rounds and new mortars still packed in protective Cosmoline. A pallet of ration cases each had roc prominently displayed.
The civilians had been drafted to unpack and assemble the weapons and over two dozen worked at cleaning the preservative off the weapons. All traces had to be eliminated or the weapons, especially the mortars, would not operate properly. Magda felt gratitude for their help, otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough time to do what they all had to accomplish. They finally reached Pelagian.
He stood in front of a split steel drum whose ends had been welded together and the whole thing turned into a grill. He turned moose steaks as the woman next to him fried eggs on a slab of thin steel.
“You folks hungry?” Pelagian asked.
“Jeez,” Bernard Sunnyboy said in a tone of relief. “I thought we was going to have to eat Russians for breakfast!”
Stoneware plates, porcelain plates and everything in between found eager hands and the army ripped through breakfast. Pelagian put away his apron and shrugged into a flak jacket boasting a charging bear of the Republic of California. His gray steel helmet featured the imperial double eagle.
A question flitted through Magda’s mind. She wondered if the Dená Republik would ever be its own master. She decided things would be fine as long as their official language wasn’t Russian.
“We’re going to hit the Russians,” Pelagian said in a conversational tone. People stopped chatting and listened to him.
“They’ve been throwing an artillery round at us every fifteen minutes for the past two hours. I think they are preparing an all-out assault on our positions. I would like those positions to start a lot closer to them than they currently are to us. You have five minutes to finish your meal.”
Conversation evaporated as everyone wolfed down food. Magda wondered for how many it would be their last meal. The five minutes went fast.
“Grab your gear; we got work to do.”
Once through the sinuous entrance, Pelagian moved briskly down the mountain and the Dená with their Russian converts kept pace. The landscape had changed. Many boulders were now shattered and strewn over the formerly open areas. Shell craters pocked the ground.
They passed dead Athabascans as well as dead Russians. Magda saw an upright boot with the foot and shin still in it, nothing else of the person evident. Massive amounts of blood had sprayed rock walls, some thick enough to still be viscous.
Flies buzzed everywhere as the day quickly heated. The smell of dead flesh eddied about them like an incoming tide. Magda knew that would also get worse as the temperature rose.
The carnage lay evident on all sides, but still they maintained their rapid pace down the mountain, slipping around the larger rocks, hesitating brief seconds to ensure the way ahead was clear, then moving relentlessly onward. Magda felt the fierce collective determination as if it were a palpable part of them all.
They would not again cower before the Russian guns. They would bring the battle to the foe and they would either triumph or die. Tears slid down her face and she wondered if she would ever see Jerry again.
“Halt!” the order hissed over the rocks and all immediately crouched behind cover. Most of them could see the mass of Russian armor and troops beyond the last rocky ridge below them. They checked their weapons and waited for orders.
Suddenly Russian troopers moved up from behind the ridge and there was no more time for further reflection or fear. Three ranks of Russians abruptly filled the space between them and the ridge.
“Fire!” Pelagian bellowed in his best “voice of God.”