Mitchell gazed at the highway ahead, scarcely noticing the scenery they passed as the troop transport lumbered along at 40 miles an hour. “I’m so confused!” he muttered.
“While you’re tryin’ to collect your marbles,” Hickok said, “I’m gonna give you the rules.”
“Rules?” Mitchell stared at the gunman.
“Yep. In case you ain’t noticed, we didn’t bother to tie you up. But I gotta warn you, just in case you get an itch to make a break for it, that Geronimo and I can take care of ourselves real good, with or without our irons. We may not be Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, but we can—”
“Who?” Mitchell interrupted.
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Geronimo replied. “He’s a fellow Warrior.”
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi?” Mitchell shook his head, perplexed. “Did this Rikki-Tikki-Tavi pick his own name, like you told me you did?”
“Rikki chose his own name,” Geronimo answered.
“Where did he ever get a name like that?” Mitchell inquired.
“From a book.”
“A book? You guys get your names from books?” Mitchell asked.
Geronimo smiled. “Perhaps it would help if I provided some background. The man we call the Founder of our Family, the man who built the Home prior to World War III, wanted us—”
“What was this man’s name?” Mitchell asked.
“He was called Kurt Carpenter,” Geronimo disclosed. “He was a survivalist, a man who thought a war was inevitable and who decided to do something about it. He was very wealthy, and he used his money to buy a plot of land near what was once known as Lake Bronson State Park in northwestern Minnesota. Carpenter personally directed the construction of his survival site, and called it the Home. He decided to call his followers, the people he invited to the Home before the war erupted, the Family. He was worried the Family might forget about the history of society, about the factors leading up to the cause of the war. So he initiated a special ceremony he termed the Naming.”
“The Naming?” Mitchell repeated, fascinated by this glimpse of Family history.
“Carpenter left a diary behind,” Geronimo detailed. “In it, he said he was worried the Family wouldn’t learn from the mistakes humanity had made. He was afraid we would disregard our ‘historical antecedents,’ as he called them. So, to foster an understanding of history, Carpenter encouraged every Family member, when they reached the age of sixteen, to select the name of a historical figure they admired as their very own.
This practice goes on even now, a century after the war. It’s not a mandatory requirement, but most Family members follow it. Now, though, we take names from literature and other sources as well as the history section of our library.”
“You have a library?”
“Carpenter left us hundreds of thousands of volumes,” Geronimo said.
“We have books on every conceivable subject.”
“And you can read any of the books you want?” Mitchell inquired.
“Certainly.”
“We have to get a permit to take a book from a library,” Mitchell said, “and even then we’re only allowed to read government approved books.”
“The Civilized Zone is ruled by a dictatorship,” Geronimo observed.
“They control every aspect of your life. The Family is different. We can read any book in our library we want, and all of us are pretty avid readers.” He paused, smirking. “Except for Hickok, of course. He’s illiterate.”
Hickok pretended to glare across at Geronimo. “Don’t listen to that mangy Injun. I can read and write as good as him. I went to the same school he did.”
“The Family has a school?”
“Yep,” Hickok replied. “Our Elders teach the youngsters everything they know.”
Mitchell stared from Hickok to Geronimo and back again. “You mean to tell me you both went to the same school?”
“Same school, same teachers,” Hickok answered. “But we didn’t wear the same britches!” He grinned at his own joke.
Mitchell faced Geronimo. “It’s not possible.”
“What’s not possible?” Geronimo asked him.
“How could you both have gone to the same school?” Mitchell demanded. “You talk like any normal person, but he,” Mitchell jerked his left thumb in Hickok’s direction, “talks so… so… so…” He couldn’t seem to find the right word.
“Weird,” Geronimo finished the sentence.
“You got it,” Mitchell said. “How come?”
Geronimo chuckled. “Hickok took his name from his childhood hero, a man who lived way back in the old Wild West days.”
“What’s the Wild West?” Mitchell asked.
“An early period in American history,” Geronimo elaborated. “There was a famous gunfighter by the name of James Butler Hickok. The idiot driving this truck thinks James Butler Hickok was the greatest man who ever lived. Consequently, he dresses like the books say Hickok dressed.
Unfortunately, he even talks like he believes the Hickok of old talked. You know he sounds ridiculous, and I know he sounds ridiculous, and I’ve tried to convince him of this fact many times. But have you ever tried to reason with a man who has the intelligence of a turnip?”
Despite his situation, momentarily forgetting his predicament, Mitchell laughed.
Hickok wisely concentrated on his driving, ignoring the barb.
Mitchell abruptly stopped laughing. “What am I doing?” he asked aloud. “I’m as crazy as you guys! Here I am having a good time with the enemy!”
“We’re not your enemies,” Geronimo said, disputing him. “We’re opposed to Samuel the Second and anyone who sides with him, but we’re not an enemy unless you want us to be.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Mitchell remarked. “You guys aren’t anything like what I expected.”
“It’s nothing to get all bent out of shape about,” Hickok declared, noting how perturbed the soldier appeared.
“If you only knew,” Mitchell said glumly.
“What’s botherin’ you, buckaroo?” Hickok inquired.
Mitchell looked at Geronimo. “You really don’t plan to kill everyone in the Civilized Zone?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Geronimo shook his head.
“Besides, how could we? There are thousands and thousands of people living in the Civilized Zone. The Family only has about eighty or ninety members.” He paused and glanced at Hickok. “How many do we have? I’ve lost track. We’ve been adding new members so fast lately, I can’t keep count of them all.”
“Well, there’s Sherry and Cynthia,” Hickok enumerated, “and Tyson and Cindy, and Gremlin and Lynx, and—”
“There’s something I need to say,” Mitchell blurted.
“What is it?” Geronimo asked.
Mitchell’s features reflected an intense inner turmoil. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again.
“Spit it out, boy,” Hickok exhorted him.
“Are there a lot of women and children at your Home?” Mitchell queried.
“We’ve got a passel of young’uns,” Hickok replied. “About twenty or so, I reckon.”
“And the Family has close to thirty women members,” Geronimo divulged. “Why?”
“All those women and children!” Mitchell stated, horrified.
Hickok slowed the truck. “What’s eatin’ at your innards, boy?”
“It’s about why I’m here,” Mitchell said.
“I asked you that before,” Hickok reminded him.
“Do you know who the Doktor is?” Mitchell questioned him.
Hickok and Geronimo exchanged knowing glances.
“We know about the Doktor,” Geronimo replied, not bothering to disclose the part they had played in the battle with the Doktor in Catlow, Wyoming.
“The Doktor hates the Family,” Mitchell said.
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Hickok cracked.
“Did you know the Doktor blames you for the nuking of Cheyenne?”