The Last President by John Barnes

Author:John Barnes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781937007157
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 2013-09-03T07:00:00+00:00

TEN:

STRANGERS TO TELL THE SPARTANS

THE NEXT DAY. TIPPECANOE BATTLE GROUND, NEW STATE OF WABASH. 3:30 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.

“That’s why we never heard back from the TexICs,” Goncalves breathed. He passed his field glasses to Larry Mensche.

In the bright light of the few-days-past-full moon, Larry made out the breastwork, now much higher, actually a full wall—“Oh, crap.” The upper part of the barricade was a heap of dead horses.

Goncalves grunted. “I figure what happened, the tribals were here way ahead of schedule, dug in and waiting. Three hundred against four thousand.”

“But the TexICs were on horseback,” Larry said. “How come none of them got away?”

The bright, almost-overhead moonlight distorted Goncalves’s face into a bitter mask. “If Robert was smart, and we know he is, what he did was put fifteen hundred or so inside the camp, lying along the breastworks, out of sight and waiting. He put another fifteen hundred right where we are now, in all this brush, ready to close the road back, probably with bows and slings to cover the exposed slope, and told them not to make a sound or move a muscle till the TexICs were at the main breastwork. Same orders to another thousand across the creek in the woods northwest of the camp; a horseman might try to get out that way and then double back, but he wouldn’t get far if there were men in the woods.

“So the TexICs arrived, and from right about here—look how torn up the ground is just downslope—they probably saw a couple sentries or a few men working, and went to charge up that steep hill—figuring they’d carry the top of it and then sweep through the camp. Maybe they even split up and sent some around over the creek, by that old visitor center—it would be more effective if they were just on a burn-and-smash raid, they’d damage more stuff faster. Probably they had a minute or so, riding up to the barricade, of thinking this was an easy win.

“But Robert or someone working for him knows what they’re doing; they put that wall up right along the top of that railroad embankment, so the last few feet are steep gravel after all the effort of getting up that steep hill. You can bet that broke the shock of the charge, created a big jam right there at the wall.

“So as soon as they were all bogged down, in ground that was terrible for horses, Robert’s troops inside stood up, the troops back here closed in from behind, and the TexICs were in the bag, exposed on bad ground, and if they broke out on either flank they ran right into that reserve force in the woods across the creek. Horses on a steep hillside, or in a brushy creek, wouldn’t have much of a chance. No room to charge or build up momentum. Their horses were pulled down or killed under them, the range was so close that those shitty bows, or just thrown rocks or long poles, would be all it took.

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