One Year After by Forstchen William R

Author:Forstchen, William R. [Forstchen, William R.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Thriller
ISBN: 9781466851894
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2015-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

DAY 743

He sat in the town hall for most of the day, refusing to discuss anything of what happened in Asheville or during their earlier flight. Billy, however, had eagerly shared what he had seen, and the entire town knew. Reactions were mixed. Some were furious over the harassment of their flight, but many shrugged off the fate that had come down on the reivers.

John requested a town council meeting for noon, and behind closed doors, he reviewed what happened both in the air over the reivers’ camp and in his subsequent meeting with Dale.

“I have a confession to make now,” he finally announced. “While being held by the reivers, I struck an informal truce. No killing raids. Neither of us can fully control everyone when it comes to stealing some pigs and chickens and running stills up in the mountains, but their leader—his name is Forrest Burnett, ex-military, wounded vet who fought in Afghanistan—struck me as an honorable man. We shook hands to just back things off between us.”

“I know Forrest,” Ed interjected. “Lived up in Burnsville. A good kid. One of my cousins married into the Burnett family, so I had some dealings with them. Heard he volunteered for the army right after 9/11. Got shot up real bad in Iraq, or maybe it was … Afghanistan … anyhow, one of those places. Came back a bit messed up. I mean, his wounds—an arm and an eye—would mess up anyone, actually. Folks said it was that posttrauma thing. Couple of brushes with the law after he got back, but cops up there understood where he was coming from and tried to keep it light on him. So he’s running the reivers?”

“It’s what he claims,” John said.

“A question, John,” Reverend Black interjected. “When you got back, why didn’t you just tell us?”

“My mistake. I realize now I should have been up front. Given that the Stepp family lost several in skirmishes with them, I knew that saying I had negotiated something of a truce wouldn’t fly well with folks living over in the North Fork. Some might have seen it as me trading off for my own freedom. I was planning to go up there personally, talk to the families one-on-one, and smooth things over before going public. Things just got ahead of me.”

“Hell, John,” Maury interjected, “when you’re a prisoner like that, anything is pretty well fair game as a promise to get you out as long as you don’t compromise the military code. We know that.”

“Forrest had promised that they were going to decamp and head north, which obviously he did not do. As we know, the Stepps did launch a vengeance raid over the weekend and walked straight into an ambush, and the reivers let them off with one man slightly wounded. Even the Stepps admitted the whole crew could have been wiped out but were let off. Maybe I screwed up by not going up there sooner. I’m sorry.” John shrugged and looked out the window, no one speaking for a moment.

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