Terrible Swift Sword
by
David Pascal
Part Two: 'Broken' (chapters 38-42)
(Note: Part Two is long, so I�m posting it on the FFML day by day in
smaller sections. Interested readers who would like to read or download
the whole of Part Two can find it at the SMJ Fanfiction Page at
http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/smj and get the whole piece there
� and really ought to, since it�s much more readably formatted.
Technically, none of the characters appearing in the original Saber
Marionette J series appear in TSS, though a few are referred to. Nor
(offhand) do I think there are any spoilers.
Saber Marionette J is owned and copyrighted by AnimeVillage.com * Satoru
Akahori * Hiroshi Negishi * Tsukasa Kotobuki * Kadokawa Shoten * Bandai
Visual * Sotsu Agency * TV Tokyo.)
Comments should be directed to: davidpascal@juno.com.)
38.
When Doctor William Ahab Pierce was sixty-one years old, he received a
telephone call on the secure line in the circular missile launch room
underground at the Enclosure. It was from the White House. It was the
Secretary of Defense calling to inform him personally of the decisions
regarding the experimentals. The decision Pierce had always feared,
always fought, and always regarded as inevitable.
The Secretary had expected the usual tongue-lashing tirade from Pierce.
In fact Pierce took the news calmly. Even politely. The Secretary was
pleased, extremely pleased, and Pierce said something about understanding
the need for greater economy in serving the great Republic, and hung up
the phone.
Afterwards Pierce simply sat there for the longest time, in one of the
futuristic bucket chairs, the lights of a thousand diodes flickering
across his features, lost in thought. None of the assistants there
interrupted him.
At length he simple got up and headed toward the door.
"Doctor Pierce?" said an especially brave young newcomer. "The missile
trajectory simulations � they need your approval before we can � Doctor
Pierce? -- "
The foot-thick metal door slid automatically shut behind Pierce as he
left.
Pierce walked down the metal ramp to his personal section of the
Enclosure. To Gel�s room. Odd how he always thought of it as Gel�s room �
it was an oasis to him, a separate realm. Its purity and order. Its
harmony. Everything he aspired to, and nothing that he had become. It was
a setting for the jewel that was Gel. He wanted to see her now. Now, and
for the last time.
He walked up to the unmarked silver sliding door and raised his head and
said, "Pierce." The computer validated his voice, and the door opened. He
entered, and there were the paper walls, the kanji scrolls, the trickling
blue water, the eternal stone garden of Ryoan-ji. Gel was in a full
kimono trimming the branches of her bonsai. She turned to look at him.
The expression of her face slid into his heart like a blade � what joy,
what gentleness, what compasssion. How had he given her these things,
these things which were not his to give, which he had almost never even
glimpsed? She was perfection � everything that he was not. That mankind
was not.
She turned back to her bonsai and Pierce walked up and sat down behind
her. He put his arms around her from behind and rested his head on the
back of her shoulder and shut his eyes.
"I love you," he said.
Gel�s head turned.
"No. Don�t stop. I don�t want to interrupt you."
"Ahab-sama�"
"Please. Finish.. It�s all right."
Gel returned to the bonsai tree, clipping it quietly and flawlessly with
small golden scissors. Ahab sat there, his arms around her.
"I got a call from the Secretary of Defense," he said at last.
"Ah," said Gel.
"They�ve negotiated a multi-lateral treaty with Gartlant and Japoness. It
looks like the other three nations may join in too."
"Does that mean there will there be peace, Ahab-sama? Peace, at last?"
"Gartlant and Japoness are insisting that New Texas doesn�t make use of
the peace to develop weapons that could destabilize the balance of power.
They've proposed a moratorium of weapons development, binding on all
nations signing the Treaty. They want to freeze the balance of power.
Keep everything the way it is now."
Gel nodded.
"They even want to scale back some of the weapons. Ieyesu in particular.
He says they�re getting too dangerous."
Gel nodded again. "Ieyesu is wise," said Gel.
"New Texas has agreed to discontinue the experimental marionettes. To
shut down all AI research in the area completely."
"What about the current experimentals?"
"Texas, Gartlant, and Japoness will be allowed three experimental models
each. Nothing more. The rest will be standard marionettes. Minimal
consciousness. Minimal emotion. They�re afraid of marionettes having
anything more."
Gel nodded.
"They�re killing you all off!" said Ahab. He shut his eyes. He leaned
his forehead against the back of her neck. "I � I�m sorry, darling � I
didn�t mean to shout -- ."
Gel put her hand on Ahab�s.
"The fools�the stupid fools -- ," said Ahab. "I knew they�d do it, I knew
they�d opt for ignorance and stasis. The apes�the monsters. How they hate
and fear anything brighter and better than themselves -- ."
Gel put her bonsai tools down. She placed both her hands on Ahab�s. She
looked straight ahead.
"A-chan," she said. "Please. Don�t do it."
"Do what?" said Ahab.
"I know what is in your mind. I know. Please. Don�t."
"I have to," said Pierce. "There�s no other way."
"Even if there is no other way � don�t."
"I have to," said Pierce. "I always knew I�d have to, one day."
Gel picked up her scissors again and looked at them. She began to clip
the bonsai again.
"I won�t let you," said Gel.
Ahab smiled. "I knew you�d feel that way. You�re not human, Gel. You have
compassion."
"I *will* stop you, darling" she said.
He smiled and hugged her even more tenderly than before. "Dear," he said,
"do you remember that old story you used to tell me when I was a boy. It
was almost the first one, I think. Do you remember? What Tuxedo Mask said
to Sailor Moon: 'A pure heart is a flash of light which breaks through
the dark night. I will protect the shine of a pure heart'. I remember,"
he said. " 'I will protect the shine of a pure heart.' "
He kissed her shoulder. And then pressed a spot on it, a spot even Gel�s
self-maintenance scans were unaware of, a spot that could be activated
only by his thumbprint. A startled look appeared in Gel�s eyes, her back
straightened, her head flew back. She shuddered. And then she shut down
completely. She fell back, limp, against Ahab. He still hugged her, his
arms around her, his head against her shoulder. He shut his eyes.
"Sayonara," he whispered.
39.
The streets of Jacksonville were finally quiet. At least, that part of
the street where the rest of the dead bodies had piled. O. Deuteronomy
Bright, the tall bony town undertaker, had been scuttling around it for
the last few hours taking off Union and Confederate dead. You had to take
special care of the Union and Confederate dead -- New Washington would be
sending people down to register both. And, of course, that meant an extra
fee for Bright, on top of the usual. Nearly twenty men dead -- and a
bonus on top! He looked around cautiously -- yep, no one was looking --
besides, it was past midnight and he was dressed toe to stovepipe hat in
suitably mournful black. He looked carefully around again, and, seeing no
one watching, broke into a little jig. Twenty dead! He clapped his hands
and clicked his heels. Shoot, he could buy himself a genu-wine ceramic
bathtub with the money that'd bring in, and two slinky marionettes to
scrub his bony back along with it! Yee-ha!
He hopped about, wiggling his arms and shaking his fanny and chortling.
Till he noticed one of his helpers, ten-year-old Obadiah Trapp, standing
there looking at him.
"You step on a scorpion or somethin', Mr. Bright?"
"What're you doin', sneakin' up on a tax-payin' citizen like that, you
little rapscallion!" hollered Bright.
"I didn't mean nothing disrespectful by it, Mr. Bright," said Obadiah.
"I ain't payin' you by the hour to sneak up on folks!"
"I know, sir. I know! It's just -- we got a little problem, like. Two of
'em, in fact, Mr. Bright"
Bright pulled down on his coat�s black lapels and calmly assumed that
stance of majestic dignity that had enabled him to overcharge mourners
for the last three decades. In a deep hammy Shakespearean voice, he said,
"And to what sort of difficulties might you be referring, young man?"
"Well, we cleaned away most all the last bunch, but what about that there
andy lyin' over yonder? You know, the one that had the two-gallon hat --
?"
"Don't you put a finger on her!" said O. Deuteronomy Bright. "We ain't
getting paid to risk our necks! Let the government pick her up. Leave her
in the street. Lord in Heaven, I ain't going anywhere *near* that one!"
"OK, sir, just wanted to make sure. Then there's this one last fella --
."
Obadiah led him down a few houses to the last human body lying in the
street.
"We asked around most all the whole town," said Obadiah, "but ain�t no
one knows who this particular dead fella is."
Bright looked down at Billy Truman's dead body, lying pale in the
moonlight.
"Ain't got nothing on him? No money or anything?"
"Nope."
"Nobody around here knows him?"
"Not far as I can see."
Bright rubbed his chin. He shrugged.
"Probably just another drifter. Well, ain't our problem then. You go up
and see Reverend Pell tomorrow. I'm sure he'll find a hole for him up at
Ginger Fields with the other trash."
"We can't just leave him overnight, though, sir. The dogs'll be out."
Bright grunted. "Wished he'd at least have kept a silver dollar in his
pockets for our troubles. Oh, well. Come on - pick him up and we'll toss
him back of the buckboard."
Bright went and squatted and slid his black-gloved hands under Billy's
armpits. Obadiah grabbed Billy's ankles. They started pulling Billy
toward the black-creped Funeral Home buckboard. Billy�s backside dragged
along the ground with a sandpapery sound.
Bright looked at Billy. "Say, where'd this drifter boy get hit? You sure
he's dead? I don't see any blood."
"Beats me, Mr. Bright," said Obadiah. "I couldn't spot no bullet holes at
all. But he ain't breathin' and his heart ain't thumpin' and he's cold
as a mackerel. If that ain't dead, don't know what is."
"I don't need you to explain me that," said Bright, grunting. They both
straightened and swung Billy once or twice like a swing and then threw
Billy's body face up on top of eleven bloody Union and Confederate troops
lying on the blood-soaked floor of Bright's buckboard.
"Phew!" said Bright. He brushed his forehead and looked at the dead
bodies. Eleven dead bodies! He couldn't keep the grin from spreading over
his face. He could feel those marionettes soaping his rump now. Moonlight
glinted on his gold tooth. "Ask the Lord, and He will provide, Obadiah!"
said Bright.
"Yessir," said Obadiah, picking his nose.
"Let's get the hell out of here, boy," said Bright.
They clambered atop the squeeking buckboard and rode away down the
street.
>From underneath the porch of the Busy Bee, Richard M. Nixon, the mutant
dog from Red Hat, watched it go. His mangy paws were still over his
mutated hyperintelligent head. Was it over at last? Good heavens. The
unexampled barbarism of these simple-minded plainsmen! Had he gotten
himself out of Red Hat just in time merely in order to walk into this?
Was there no oasis of calm in these blighted plains? Well, at least
everything seemed calm for the moment. He snuck out carefully from under
the porch and sniffed.
Off to the left Belt's blackened hand lay in the street. It's smoking
aroma reached his sensitive nostrils. It smelled wonderful! Like beef
jerky, with just a tincture of brown sugar and soy sauce! Richard M
trotted over, sniffed, and licked it. Exquisite! He grabbed it with his
jaws and picked it up. Mmm-mm! He wondered if the rest of the andy
called Belt tasted that good.
He trotted on over to her, her hand between his teeth, and got to her
face and leaned over and sniffed her cheek. He licked his teeth and
prepared to dig in.
Suddenly a soft high theremin-like note suddenly waxed into existence out
of nowhere and devolved into static. Richard M's three ears stood
straight up. Belt's eye opened. It looked straight at him.
He dropped the hand in sheer terror and ran down the street yipping and
yapping, his tail between his legs.
Belt watched the dog go. The eye shifted. She looked in the direction
Billy's body had last been. She tried moving her arm. It was agony. She
moved it nonetheless, dragging herself two feet before the pain became
impossible, unendurable, and she stopped. A dark stench crossed into her
nostrils. Was it all the dead humans that had been in the street? No -
no. Dead humans smelled good. The edges of her hair. Her hair had been on
fire. That was it. The edges of her hair had been on fire.
Her other eye opened, smoothly, automatically. She looked down the
Jacksonville street. A buckboard was heading away. The telescope function
of her visual sensors zoomed in. She saw a hand atop a pile of bodies.
Billy's. Billy's hand.
The buckboard turned a corner. Belt's visual sensors zoomed in as far as
they could, but there was nothing. Her eyes continued searching. That was
the street that McCabe had galloped away upon. McCabe. Where � where was
he? McCabe and his damned experimental marionette-killing gun. She could
almost still hear the hoofbeats. The voice. 'Leave her. She don't
matter.' -- She *don't matter*.
"I'm going to kill you," she whispered, over and over, dragging herself
forward over the dust, stretching out her blackened stump of a wrist.
"I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you! I'm
going to kill you!"
40.
Skinner slapped his reins across the chevies pulling his rig repeatedly,
shouting and cursing at them. And the damn things did move faster, but
not fast enough. He put the reins into his left hand and reached behind
with his right into the bunched-up blankets behind him, groping for a
whip, or a pistol to shoot, or something. Suddenly his hand brushed
something soft � no, hard � no�
Skinner hollered. Something sank its teeth into his hand. He let go of
the reins and reached around and grabbed for the thing under the blanket
with its teeth in his hand.
The chevies, uncontrolled, reared up and ran around in ragged circles.
The backboard bucked and rocked and slowed down. Skinner rolled around in
the back trying to get a grip on the thing in the blanket, and finally
fell off the back, still holding on to it.
The chevies pulled the backboard around him in circles, slowing to a
gradual halt as they came across some edible cacti with blossoms of
something like tiny cherries on them. They bit at them, grinning.
Skinner swatted the thing under the blanket three or four times and
finally it let go and fell to the ground. Skinner pulled out his wide
ten-inch Bowie knife and crouched in combat ready position.
The blanket fell off to reveal a scared-looking blond blue-eyed ten-year
old boy. Ephraim Levi. From the livery stables.
"Stay back! You stay away from me!" shouted the boy.
Skinner straightened. He looked at the boy, and grinned. Well, well.
Fresh meat, and out of nowhere too! He chuckled. "And people say there is
no God..." He chuckled quietly.
Skinner stuck his knife back of his belt. He slapped his palms on his
knees.
"C�mere, sweetheart," said Skinner. "Give Daddy a kiss."
"You come and get me, Baldy!" said the boy, his fists bunched up like a
boxer�s.
Skinner laughed out loud.
"Tell you what, honeybunch," said Skinner. "We�ll make it sporting." He
tossed his Bowie knife at the boy�s feet.
The boy grabbed for it. Skinner pulled up a pant leg and pulled a
concealed throwing knife out. He tossed that to the boy too. Then he
stuck his hands in his pants and kept them there.
"How�s that? Eh, boy? Evens the odds, eh? Come on. You do your best, you
try to cut old Skinner, OK, honey? See if you can put a scratch on ol�
Zeke. C�mon. And to the victor go the spoils."
The boy held the big knife in his right hand and the throwing knife in
his right. His eyes were huge. He was scared to death.
"Well, honey?" said Skinner.
Ephraim Levi lifted both knives and screamed and charged him.
Skinner tripped him. The child fell into the desert dust.
"You can do better than that, boy. Come on!"
Ephraim Levi got up and lunged in. He slashed the big knife forward in
long arcs. Skinner hopped back, hands in his pockets, laughing. "Good
one! That�s it � crouch when you go in. That�s right. Come on. Again!"
Ephraim went for Skinner�s belly.
Skinner twisted, and as the boy went by, kicked him in the pants. Ephraim
went sprawling and fell face down in a pace of desert weed and some
stones. The Bowie knife fell from his fingers.
"Ooops! Sorry, little fella! Didn�t mean to bruise your pink little butt.
Leastways not yet!" Skinner tossed his head back and laughed.
Ephraim grabbed the enraged Terratooan scorpion he had fallen on and
threw it into Skinner�s face.
It�s barbed tail wrapped itself instantly around Skinner�s neck and it�s
crab legs crawled along his cheeks and eye. He screamed.
Ephraim grabbed the Bowie knife and charged, screaming too.
That was his mistake. Skinner heard it, gauged it, and lashed his boot
out.
It caught the boy in the stomach. He went sprawling.
Skinner grabbed the Terratooan scorpion and half pulled it off his face.
Skinner�s good eye spotted his Bowie Knife lying where he�d kicked the
boy, and he reached down and grabbed it and began to hack the damned
thing�s tail off.
Feeling sick to his stomach, holding his belly, Ephraim got up again,
holding the throwing knife. He charged Skinner once again.
Skinner�s Bowie knife came down once again and chopped clean through the
scorpion�s tail. Thr thing screeched and gurgled, and he threw it to the
ground and crushed it under his jackboot.
He turned to see Ephraim�s blade heading straight for his chest.
He deflected the thrust with his left wrist, and gave the blond boy a
backhanded slap with the other that sent him and the throwing knife
flying in opposite directions.
Ephraim Levi lay in the dust, panting.
Skinner stood there with the scorpion�s long tail still twitching around
his neck. He grabbed it, and pulled it off with disgust, and threw it to
the side.
He looked at the boy.
Ephraim was trying to crawl away. He couldn�t even stand. He�d snapped an
ankle bone falling.
Skinner wiped the feel of scorpion off his face and went and got his
knives. He slid his throwing knife in his boot, and stuck his Bowie knife
back of his belt again.
He went and stood over the boy.
"Get away from me!" shouted the boy. "Get away from me!"
Skinner picked the terrified boy up by his collar and lifted him up into
the air. He grinned. "To the victor go the spoils." He puckered and
pulled the boy�s face closer. The boy squirmed and screamed.
And then Skinner noticed something -- there was a half-inch line of blood
on his left wrist. Blood! The little bastard had actually cut him!
Him, Skinner! "I�ll be damned," he said. It had been quite a while
since anybody had managed to cut him. Quite a while.
He frowned.
He held the boy at arm�s length. He looked the boy straight in the eye.
"I�ll be damned. You did cut me, didn�t you? How about that. You little
bastard."
Skinner lifted the boy higher in the air. "Boy -- you fought well.
Bravely. You do deserve better than to be used like this. By God, you do
deserve better."
He pulled his Bowie knife out. "You got a name, boy?"
"Ephraim." said the boy. Skinner could feel his small body trembling like
a bird. "Ephraim Levi."
"Ephraim, I am Captain Ezekial Skinner, former Acting Colonel in the
Confederated Army of the United Southern Territories, holder of two
Purple Hearts, both Confederate and New Texan Silver Stars, and the
Presidential Medal of Honor and Valor. I currently serve as Chief
Officer in charge of Special Services, New Texas Marionette Control
Division," said Skinner. "You fought with courage. I salute you."
He drove the knife into the boy cleanly between the fourth and fifth left
ribs of the boy�s rib cage. It entered the lad�s heart almost
immediately. He died at once.
Skinner let go of his collar, and held him up in the air by the knife
alone. The boy's body twitched like a silver flounder gasping for air for
a few moments. Then he was still.
Skinner looked at the boy, and saluted sharply with his left hand.
Then he lowered the arm holding the knife and the boy slid off it and
fell into the dry yellow sand like a rag. Blood trickled out in a sharp
rivulet, like urine, and soaked into the sand.
Skinner waved over the chevies, and got back up onto the seat of the rig.
He took the reins in his hands and looked out onto the dead boy lying in
the sand. His blue eyes were open and lavender particles of sand were
already accumulating on his eyes, almost sparking there from the sun,
which made the dead boy�s hair look like a halo of gold. How very lovely,
thought Skinner. How very lovely. He sighed. Shame to waste something
that pretty.
But, thought Skinner � without standards, what is a man?
He flicked the reins. The chevies whinnied and headed North, toward the
Enclosure.
41.
At that very moment, Doctor Ahab Pierce was sitting at his desk in his
administrative office. He sat there alone. Humming. Humming old tunes.
When he was a boy, Gel had sung him a thousand old Japanese melodies. A
thousands � �sakura�, �yamato�, the tunes from ancient anime�odd how they
stayed in a person�s mind, he thought; odd. After the third call�s eighth
ring, he picked the receiver off the cradle.
"Doctor Pierce?"
"Speaking."
"We�ve received an update regarding the escaped experimentals, sir."
Pierce said nothing.
" -- Doctor?"
"I�m here."
"A total success. All three marionettes down."
Pierce nodded. He began laughing.
"Doctor?"
"Excellent work. See that the men are commended. Keep me updated."
"Yes, sir. Oh but sir -- ?"
Pierce hung up. He stood up in the office. He rarely sat there. It was
for official purposes � greeting military figures and so on. His
exterior, official life was hung on the walls � degrees, medals,
photographs of him
shaking the hand of the President. He looked at them. He turned around
and got his cane and left.
Pierce walked slowly down the corridor, his eyes on the floor, lost in
thought. He headed in the direction of Gel�s room. No one referred to it
as that, of course. Gel was not a person and so could not have a room. It
was
referred to as �Doctor Pierce�s private study�. Only Doctor Pierce
thought of it as Gel�s room. He placed one hands behind his back, as
though it were tied there. Gel�s room�
A door opened to his left and a handsome young man with dark hair and a
duffel bag came out. He looked at Pierce with a kind of shock. Pierce
looked back. Where had he seen that face?
"Excuse me, Doctor � I didn�t mean to get in your way."
"That voice�you�re � Tracy, aren�t you? I mean -- Mister Evans?"
The young man nodded. "Yes, sir. That�s right."
Pierce looked at the young man. "Are you going on a furlough of some
sort, Mr. Evans? I notice the duffel bag."
A tight expression crossed Tracy�s features. "I�ve been demoted and
reassigned, sir. After that�incident in your office, personnel decided
I�d be more useful in the non-comm�s barracks."
"Doing what?"
Tracy gave Pierce a hard stare. "What do you think?"
Pierce looked at the floor for a moment. How wretched a way to spend the
last few days of one�s life, he thought. The very last few days of
everything. How very wretched.
"Mr. Evans," said Pierce. " � I don�t need any sort of �special
services�. But I do need a good personal assistant. Someone to keep my
schedule and paperwork in order. With the � makeup � scraped off, you
look like a fine, competent young man. If you feel you can do your work
properly, I would have no objection to speaking to Personnel and keeping
you on. I have no � personal objections to it."
Tracy�s eyes opened wide. "I � I�d like that, Doctor. I�d like that very
much."
Pierce nodded. "Good. I�ll speak to Personnel about it, then. Good day to
you, Mr Evans," said Pierce. He actually smiled.
"Good day to you, Doctor," said Tracy, astonished.
Pierce turned away, and walked down the corridor. He forgot Tracy Evans
almost at once, and swam deeply in his memories. These corridors. He
thought of all the times Gel and he had walked down these corridors. He
thought of Gauleiter�s terrible jokes. He�d never laughed at one. Now,
twenty years later, he found himself gently laughing at them. One or two
of the laboratory people gaped at him doing so as he passed.
Eventually he came to Gel�s room. He�d arranged the Enclosure�s computer
system to recognize him. The door opened automatically. He entered.
Everything was bright and colorful � the miniature Zen garden of
Ryoan-ji, the sounds of the dancing brook. So bright. So alive. Almost as
though she were still there.
The brightness began to hurt his eyes. "Less light, please," he said.
The Enclosure�s computer dimmed the light in the room to a clear
twilight. He stood there in the near-dark, looking at the places Gel had
sat, at the cups she had touched, at her rice dish and chopsticks, at her
traditional slippers in the corner, and then � lost in thought, he hugged
himself, and softly rocked, and rocked.
After a while, he stopped; and, looking around, he noticed Gel�s
shimasen. It was a banjo-like instrument, three-stringed. She'd played it
for him long, long ago, when he was a boy, and lately she'd begun taking
it up again. How he smiled when he saw it; a beautiful, luminous smile,
like when he�d first seen it all those years ago. He picked it up, and
ran his fingers along its strings. He walked through the twilight to the
nearest wall and sat
down on the floor and pulled his legs up and laid his back against the
wall.
He plucked the strings; a few notes sounded. He thought of all those
silly anime tunes Gel had sung to him. Silly anime � �Seira Muun� He
smiled. Odd how these things stayed in a person�s mind, he thought; odd.
The brook ran, and the sounds of the water splashing echoed like crystal
in the dim empty room. Very, very quietly, he plucked the shimasen and
sang.
The shining stars that sparkle above
Foretell the whereabouts of true love.
Born on the same Earth as me and you,
A miracle romance-u
Do you believe in it too?
A miracle romance-u�
42.
High atop a cliff seventy miles from Jacksonville, two riders sat on a
pair of chevies overlooking the valley below. A plasma cloud covered both
moons and deep evening darkness blanketed the riders down in the valley.
Suddenly a crack appeared in the clouds and a silent crystal-clear stream
of light flowed and rippled across the valley beneath them. An unfurling
ribbon of dust shimmered deep down in the light. One of the riders on the
cliff stepped his chevy step forward, to the very edge of the cliff, and
peered down through binoculars. The binoculars showed three men far
below, driving their chevies forward wildly, racing like the fate of the
world depended on it. The rider focused his binoculars again.
"Sir! It's McCabe! And he's got the andy with him! He did it. He did it!
We've still got a chance!" The chevy underneath the man reared its legs
up. He laughed aloud. "General, you were right. God *is* with us!"
The man beside him nodded quietly. "God has always been with us," he
said.
The plasma clouds parted for a moment, and crackled, and light broke over
the top of the cliff, and over the two riders. Both men wore Confederate
uniforms. The first man was large and strong and twenty years of age,
with a red neckerchief tied around his neck. His face was black as coal.
He looked down into the valley at McCabe and his bounty with joy and
amazement. The second man was sixty-one years of age. One hand held the
reins of his chevy, Traveller. The other was on the hilt of his sword.
His hair was white and his full white beard covered a face that had once
been quite handsome. It was the face of the man who had commanded the
Confederate Army during the American Civil War nearly six hundred years
ago -- General Robert E. Lee.
*
End of Part Two
Next: Part Three � �The Trumpets That Shall Never Call Retreat�