“I’m not sure,” Seth said uncertainly.
“Not sure? All citizens of the State are required to be completely familiar with all of its laws and regulations. Is this not so?”
“Yes,” Seth replied, averting his eyes.
“I say you do know,” Simms declared. “You knew what it was about eight years ago when Nevins delivered your brat. You knew damn well that every baby born with Type O blood, by law, must be reported to the Bilogical Center in Cheyenne! You knew damn well that the Doktor personally issued that directive! And you knew if you did report the birth, you’d never see your brat again! That’s why it was never reported!”
“What proof do you have?” Gail Mason requested.
“The lady wants proof?” Lieutenant Simms snickered again and some of his men did likewise. “We have all the proof we need, bitch! An informant told us about kindly Dr. Nevins, how he was falsifying his records, how he wasn’t reporting all the babies with Type O blood. The fool! Did he think he could get away with it forever? Well, we interrogated Dr. Nevins three days ago. Of course, he denied all of the allegations. But the moron kept a secret set of records at his home, hidden behind one of the walls in his study. We found it, and guess what? Guess whose name we found under one of the entries? Guess who gave birth to a baby boy with Type O blood and it was never reported to the Doktor? Guess!” Simms roared.
“Oh, Dear God!” Gail exclaimed.
“God?” Simms bellowed. “There is no God! Believing in a deity is also against the law! You know that!” He looked at his men. “If they keep opening their lousy mouths, by the time we get to the Citadel, we should have a list of charges against them as long as my arm!”
His men tittered.
Adam was absolutely petrified. What should he do to help his parents?
What could he do? Maybe Yama would…
Yama was gone.
Adam gaped at the spot where he’d last seen the man in blue, wondering where he’d gone? Had he run away? Was that it? Somehow, he didn’t think Yama was the kind of man to run away from trouble.
“Okay! Enough of the fun and games!” Lieutenant Simms raised his M-16. “Get your asses off that porch this instant! Keep your arms up, or you’ll get a new navel!”
Adam held his breath as his father and mother began to move from the porch to the grass. They were on the second of the three stairs when a new voice was heard.
“If you are an example of the quality of military leadership in the Army of Samuel the Second,” stated a voice Adam recognized, “then Samuel should consider tightening his recruitment standards.”
By shifting his position, and aligning his eyes with the lower left corner of the window, Adam could see Yama standing calmly at the northwestern corner of the log house, his machine gun held loosely in his hands.
At the first sound of Yama’s statement, the soldiers had immediately shifted, their astonishment plainly evident, their M-16’s at their sides, taken completely unawares.
“Who the hell are you?” Lieutenant Simms demanded, finally able to make his voice function.
“Death.”
“Death?” Simms reiterated, thinking the stranger was making some kind of joke.
“Yes, Death,” Yama affirmed. “See?” He brazenly turned, enabling the troopers to see the silhouette of the skull on the back of his shirt, and then promptly faced them again, a thin smile on his lips.
“If this is your idea of a joke, buddy,” Lieutenant Simms retorted, “it’s going to get you in a heap of trouble.”
“You have it backwards,” Yama said.
“What do you mean by that?” Lieutenant Simms angrily inquired.
“You are in a heap of trouble,” Yama clarified for him.
“Us? There’s six of us!” The officer laughed. “You must be crazy! Drop that gun! Now!”
“I’d prefer it if you would drop yours,” Yama told him.
“I’m not playing games!” Lieutenant Simms threatened. “What do you think you can probably do against all of us?”
“Kill you,” Yama replied, crouching and leveling his machine gun, moving faster than a striking snake.
Adam heard the metallic chatter of Yama’s gun and saw two of the soldiers, the ones nearest the man in blue, torn apart by the shattering impact of the heavy slugs ripping into their chests and abdomens.
The four surviving soldiers instantly returned Yama’s fire, but he was already gone, leaping from sight behind the corner of the house.
“Damn!” Simms fumed, swinging his M-16 to cover the Masons again.
“Damn! Who the hell was he?” he snapped, glaring at Seth.
Adam’s dad shrugged. “We don’t really know,” he confessed.
“Bet me!” Simms shouted. He glanced at a stocky trooper to his right.
“Harris! Take Morgan and track down the son of a bitch!”
“Do you want him alive or dead?” Harris inquired.
“Waste the bastard!” Simms ordered, his face contorted with the intensity of his fury.
Harris nodded and led Morgan, a young soldier with straw-colored hair, at a trot around the southwestern corner of the house.
Adam dropped to the floor, wondering what he should do next. His parents appeared to be okay for the moment, but Yama was in deadly danger. Those two men after him looked like they meant business!
He just had to see what would happen!
Adam scurried across the hardwood floor, scuffing his knees, and into his bedroom. He saw his window wide open and realized how Yama had exited the log home undetected. An oaken chest was directly under the window, and Adam climbed on top of the chest to peer out the window, keeping his body below the sill except for his eyes.
About an acre behind the house was kept cleared of all brush and used as the backyard. Several trees had been left standing to provide shade and a break against the wind. One of those trees was an old elm tree with a trunk almost four feet in diameter, situated only twenty feet from Adam’s window.
There was no sign of Yama.
Adam detected movement out of the corner of his right eye and saw the two soldiers come into view, advancing cautiously, their M-16’s at the ready as they searched for the man in blue.
Where was Yama?
The stocky soldier suddenly tapped his companion on the left arm and pointed at the base of the elm tree.
Why?
Adam followed their line of vision and couldn’t believe what he discovered: Yama’s machine gun was propped against the trunk of the tree, leaning at an angle!
The troopers were now walking slowly toward the tree, rightfully suspecting a trap. They separated as they neared the tree, and then both of them sprinted around opposite sides of the trunk simultaneously.
Adam tensed, expecting to hear the sound of their M-16’s blasting Yama to shreds. Instead, the soldiers looked disappointed as they moved over to Yama’s machine gun and the stocky one bent over to retrieve the weapon.
What was going on?
Adam couldn’t comprehend any of this.
The younger soldier abruptly looked directly above his head and started to bring the barrel of his M-16 up, but he was too late.
Yama plummeted from concealment in the branches of the tree, his unusual sword grasped by the hilt with both hands, and swung the long, curved blade downward even as he dropped.
Adam involuntarily gasped as the blade sliced into the young trooper’s face, splitting it open from the forehead to the chin, blood gushing from the cavity and flowing copiously over the soldier’s neck and chest.
The stocky trooper, Harris, was trying to straighten, his M-16 rising, when Yama wrenched his blade free from the young trooper and swung the sword much like Adam would swing his baseball bat when playing with his parents or some of the neighbor children. The curved blade caught Harris in the neck, in the throat, nearly decapitating him; his head flopped to one side, blood gushing from his severed arteries and veins, and he fell to the ground.