Royal Hues of Blue: Book One Page 5
Maria’s house stood on a relatively level piece of ground on a hillside concealed by tall trees from the expansive valley at the hill’s base. He wasn’t sure exactly how he had been brought here, but he knew the woman could not have taken him all that far from where he had been injured. John knew the general terrain of the valley below, but he wasn’t sure exactly where he was in the hills. The air was pleasantly warm; a hint of crispness, but not coolness clung to it as the morning sun quickly burnt off the last of the morning fog. John took a deep breath of the fresh air and exhaled as he closed his eyes in enjoyment. His side had settled into a dull, warm throb and he managed to ignore it as he took in the natural beauty of the landscape around him. The land beside the house contained a small lake in the midst of pine trees with a creek that drained into it. It was here he spotted Maria; busy with some sort of work. John made his way towards her, surveying his surroundings as he walked. There was a small, wooden rowboat tied up to a small makeshift dock about 50 feet away from where the creek emptied into the lake and John wondered if the lake still contained fish. He was suddenly aware of how hungry he was, and rubbed the bare skin of his exposed abdomen as he approached Maria.
The young Rista woman was hard at work scrubbing clothes on a washboard and John did not want to startle her. He was about to call out to her when without a look she called out,
“Buenos días”!
John smiled as he stopped at the side of the creek. He knew how to say only a few things in the Rista language, but “good morning” was one of them.
“Buenos días” he replied with a smile.
Maria looked up to give him a quick smile and went quickly back to her work. She was wearing old faded pale blue denim jeans and a plain black t shirt with her brown leather shoes. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and she was wet from all her splashing, but she somehow still looked pretty. He hadn’t looked at a woman in such a way since his Vanessa, and suddenly John felt guilt sweep over him. He looked away and gently knelt down to pick up one of the shirts from the ground. He waited until she had finished with the jeans she had been washing, and handed it to her as she turned towards the unwashed clothes. She smiled and took the shirt from his hand.
“Gracias,” she said as she began scrubbing the shirt.
John wanted to help her with the washing, but his side was burning just from walking out here. He sat down next to Maria and waited until she was finished with that shirt before handing her another. They continued on this way until all the clothes had been washed, and John helped her hang the clothes on three clotheslines she had tied between two wooden posts about 100 feet from the back porch. Maria held the empty box on her hip as she took a moment to rest. She took a deep breath of the late spring air and slowly let it out, enjoying the subtle fragrance of the blooming flower trees nearby. John watched as the sunlight played on her dark hair, bathing her in a sort of aura which clung to her much like a gentle glow. She saw him looking at her and smiled shyly.
“Tienes hambre?” she asked as her smile stayed on her lips.
John could tell she had asked him a question from the inflection in her voice, but he had no idea what she had asked. She repeated the question, this time as she pretended to eat from an imaginary fork. Understanding now, John nodded his head to say yes. Maria motioned for him to follow her, and led him to a wooden structure with a large, thick sliding door. John could hear the distinct clucking of chickens as they drew near and realized it was a henhouse. Maria pushed the door open and it made a loud squeaking sound as its rusted wheels slid along the metal track upon which it was mounted. The chickens protested with a loud explosion of clucking and flapping of wings as they walked inside. The hens were in wire cages lined up in rows and Maria grabbed a wicker basket from a bench and handed it to John. John followed her as she went from cage to cage removing the eggs from beneath the hens and placing them in the basket. When she had checked each cage, she grabbed a lantern, and used a match from a box next to the lantern to light it. John followed her down some stairs and into a cellar. It was very cool in the cellar, and John shivered as he crossed his arms across his still bare torso. Maria went to a large box of some kind with a door. She opened the door and put some of the eggs they had just gathered into the box. She also removed a block of cheese from within it and closed the door. She turned and saw John shivering and her eyes were filled with concern.
“Oh, lo siento!” she exclaimed.
She rubbed his arm with her hand for a moment.
“Vamos a comer.”
She smiled and led John back up the stairs and out of the henhouse where it was much warmer. John felt the warm sunlight on his bare skin and closed his eyes as he enjoyed the warmth. Maria motioned for him to follow her and they went to the back of the house where there was a wood burning stove. Maria took a few pieces from a nearby woodpile and placed them within the stove. She then poured a small amount of some sort of liquid over the wood before lighting it with a match. The fire roared to life with a suddenness that caught John off-guard. Maria closed the iron door and went into the house. She returned with a cast iron skillet and a few utensils. John watched as she readied the stove. When it was good and hot, she broke the eggs into the hot skillet. The air was filled with the aroma of food cooking and John suddenly realized how hungry he was. When Maria was finished with the eggs, they went inside where she urged John to sit at a small table. She brought two plates with scrambled eggs, a hunk of cheese, some dried venison and two small bottles of goat’s milk. Handing John a fork, she sat down across from him and smiled.
“Thank you, Maria,” said John.
“Espera! ….Primero decimos gracia.” Maria scolded as John was about to sink his fork into his eggs.
John looked at her quizzically, but quickly understood when she bowed her head and folded her hands. He followed her lead and held the pose while Maria gave thanks for their meal. John WAS grateful for the food, even though he had never been a particularly religious man. Religion was discouraged as superstition in the Soona Nation; although, the state had never been able to snuff it out. He snuck a glance at Maria as she continued to bless the meal with her eyes tightly closed and her hands folded directly in front of her chin. She was fervently saying something more than just “thank you”; the woman did not seem to do anything with less than total enthusiasm. John felt something like…affection for her. He realized what he was feeling, and something inside him automatically shuddered. It was like he was a computer, programmed to instantly recoil and reject anything positive about the Ristas. He hated the Ristas and everything about them. His training had taught him hatred was the most powerful weapon in a man’s arsenal, and he needed to make sure he didn’t lose it. He would not allow himself to begin thinking of a Rista as anything other than the disgusting savages they were. Still, Maria HAD saved his life and was being nothing short of wonderful in sharing all she had with him. She finished her prayer and looked up at him with a smile as she picked up her fork. John returned her smile as he finally sunk his own fork into his eggs. He was full of conflicting thoughts, and he decided to leave them be as he enjoyed the most delicious breakfast he’d had in ages.
The Rista Federation possessed the strongest military of the tribal nations that had sprung up around it after The Fall. Beyond its southern border was The Confederation, a nation that stretched all the way into what people still called South America. The Confederation was said to have its origins in the private militias of drug lords who took advantage of the fall of governments to make nations of themselves. After a period of infighting, they merged their forces to create The Confederation and quickly conquered any who dared resist them. They were constantly trying to expand their territory by invading the Ristas to their north, but the Rista military had been successful in fighting them off for decades. The Rista Federation was governed by a popularly elected president, a dozen elected governors and an executive board that served to administer the country efficiently. There was a thriving industrial
sector in the center of the Federation; far from the fighting on its northern, southern and eastern borders. A prosperous aristocracy lived in affluence here, and the factories were filled with workers who had fulfilled their required military service and were happy to be away from the fighting. The weather was warm, and people enjoyed the best of modern conveniences.
It was a much different story for those living near the borders where the fighting was constantly raging. There was one main highway for each region; maintained for travel between the region and the center of the Federation. Everything else was a remnant of the crumbling infrastructure of the days before The Fall. Bridges had collapsed and others threatened to at any moment. Most of the roads were impassable at any sort of high speed, and hardly anyone owned vehicles anyways; the ones who did found it almost impossible to get fuel for them. The roads out here were primarily for military use, and they were made of dirt and rocks. People hunted for food and kept gardens. Some of them managed to farm, but this was impossible anywhere close to the borders. Those who had tried discovered the soldiers had no regard for their property. They would wander onto their land and pick their crops when they were hungry, and their commanders answered complaints with statements about how everyone had to help with the war effort. People living near the fighting had to constantly worry about shifting borders and waking up to find themselves living behind enemy lines one morning. This led to very few civilians living anywhere near the borders.
Rodriguez studied the maps in front of him. It had been two weeks since the Soona had tried to take out his radio tower, and there was still no sign of Wallace. His men had searched every room in every house for miles in every direction. They had searched every cave and looked behind every rock. There was no sign of him anywhere. Martinez had been assured by his spies that Wallace had not returned to the Soona. The man had simply disappeared. Rodriguez was puzzled, but there were plenty of possible explanations. He could have encountered bandits who killed him, robbed him of anything valuable and threw his body down one of the old mineshafts. That was the most common reason people disappeared in this region. He could have fallen to his death on one of the mountains and landed in an area difficult to reach on foot. He was sure nobody was hiding the man. Treason carried the death sentence, and he’d had his men do second searches in the middle of the night throughout the area. He knew better than to ever assume, but it was likely that Wallace was dead. They’d find his body eventually; maybe at the bottom of some cliff in the midst of bushes. Regardless of where he was, Wallace was not his biggest concern at the moment.
The Soona were still massed at their northern border and were feinting up and down the river. They gave the impression an invasion was imminent, and Rodriguez had called a pre-dawn meeting with his generals. Five of them sat around a table as the various maps were displayed on digital screens.
“What I don’t get,” one general was saying, “is why keep moving laterally along the river? Why not make a series of attacks and withdrawals to discover what our reactions will be? They learn nothing of our tactics with these movements. It makes no sense.”
“Because they’re Soona,” laughed another general. “They aren’t known for being all that smart. There’s a reason we tell Soona jokes.”
Everyone laughed briefly as Rodriguez watched them in stone silence. He had his elbows on the table and fingers interlocked in front of his chin as he listened to his officers.
“In all seriousness,” the first general continued, “this is the first time they have held open ground. They have relied on the mountainous terrain to defend themselves for a long time. They probably don’t know how to attack us in face-to-face battle.”
“Wallace managed to do it,” someone else stated solemnly.
“And Wallace is dead! He was a once-in-a-generation talent, and they have lost him. They have no idea what to do next!”
“We don’t know that he is dead,” another said.
Rodriguez unfolded his hands and stood up. The room immediately got quiet as he began to slowly walk around the table, speaking as he went.
“Wallace has been dealt with. This is our official position on the subject. He may be dead. We may be interrogating him in some secret facility. He may have defected and willingly led his men into a trap as a cover story. We will float all of these rumors out there, but verify none of them. We will only state that the Federation has dealt severely with him. This will give our people reason to cheer while discouraging the enemy.”
“What really happened to him, sir?” One of the generals asked Rodriguez, and he stopped for a few moments before resuming his slow walk.
“That information is above your paygrade, general. Do not interrupt me again.”
The men at the table all looked down sheepishly as Rodriguez walked in silence. His temper was well-known throughout the officer ranks, and nobody wanted any part of being the object of his wrath.
“Wallace is no longer one of the variables in our equation,” Rodriguez continued. “The Soona have other commanders, and they are not the fools our jokes would make them out to be. Even the dumbest of groups has its intellectuals, and they are formidable foes. Wallace was just the greatest of these. They learned from him. They know certain things that work against us now. They still outnumber us here along the river. They will make their move when they are ready. Wallace’s plan was actually excellent. Had he succeeded, they would have rolled over us and marched to the outskirts of Hidalgo before meeting any kind of formidable resistance. Our men will never know just how close we came to total disaster. We should be wary of overconfidence. For all we know, they are conducting another such operation as we speak.”
He stopped behind his chair and placed his hands on the back. He waited until everyone looked up at him before continuing. He knew how to project authority and wielded that power well.
“I am calling off the search for Wallace. We will post the usual bounties and rewards. Maybe someone will spot him. It doesn’t matter now. We cannot continue to divert so many resources to finding him when we are facing imminent invasion. Order Captain Fuentes to disband his search and prepare for his new assignment. We have need of his unit at the eastern front. The Texans have just undergone a coup, and we are receiving reports of major activity along our eastern border. We will discuss that in the afternoon meeting at 1500. Until then, spend the morning readying our forces to move 30 miles to the east to counter the Soona movement as we discussed. Dismissed.”
The generals filed out, and Rodriguez turned his back as they left. Something unusual was happening here in the north, and he couldn’t put his finger on it yet. Too many things didn’t add up. He wanted to coordinate with the RID to get to the bottom of it, but Colonel Martinez had suddenly been summoned to Hidalgo, and his replacement was yet to arrive. He walked outside and lit up his pipe as the sun was preparing to rise. He had been told it was going to be a hot day. He hoped it would be a quiet one as well. He didn’t like uncertainty, and he made up his mind to go outside of RID channels to find out everything that was happening here in the north.
It had been a few weeks since John had awoke in the hidden room beneath Maria’s house, and they had begun to settle into a kind of routine. They would wake up early each morning and go for a walk around what seemed to be the boundaries of her land. As far as he could tell, she owned the entire mountain except for one small area where an old woman lived alone. The mountain was heavily forested, and she had several traps set to catch small animals for eating. They checked these each morning. There were small creeks that ran through her land. They would go through their morning ritual and would sometimes stop and spend some time just enjoying the faint early morning light and finding ways to communicate. They each knew a few words of the other’s language, and they made drawings in the dirt with sticks. Neither was able to draw much more than stick figures to represent humans, and both struggled to draw accurate representations of events that would be understood by the other. Some of the drawings bordere
d on chicken scratch, and the two of them had shared many laughs over their poor artistry.
He accompanied Maria through her usual rounds as the first rays of daybreak began to creep over the horizon. They checked the first trap. It was empty. They were on their way along higher ground when she suddenly froze in her tracks and held a finger to her lips signaling him to be quiet. They knelt on the ground as she surveyed the trees around them to the south. She held the rifle she always carried on these trips very close to her chest as she studied the trees for signs of movement. He could tell she was worried but had no idea what had upset her. Had the Rista soldiers returned? He hoped they had abandoned their search for him after almost two weeks and the threat of imminent invasion just a few miles north. He unsnapped the sheath of his hunting knife and fingered the handle. He could feel his heart pounding as he looked for any sign of the enemy, but he saw nothing in the near darkness. The only light was above them in the sky as the approaching dawn painted the few visible clouds a gentle pink. He was suddenly very aware of the sound of his breathing, and he tried to quiet this by taking small, slow breaths as they knelt in the brush of the forest.