“Personal? This is about more than a hundred families here. I don’t see that as a personal decision just for you to make.”
Maury Hurt, arm still in a sling, came to his feet. “Who the hell are you, Ernie, to tell him what to do? Frankly, I think the offer stinks, putting John in a position of damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. The way it was offered, putting John on the spot like this, tells me something isn’t kosher with this deal. I think we should have a vote that regardless of John’s decision, either we go along with the full draft or say no to the whole damn thing.”
“Easy for you to say, Hurt,” Ernie retorted. “Your kids aren’t being called up.”
That triggered an explosion of arguments and accusations. Reverend Black and Ed stood up by John’s side, shouting for order.
Ed finally seized the bullhorn, yelling that if folks didn’t shut the hell up, the meeting was over and he’d clear the town square by force if need be. The crowd finally settled down, and Ed handed the bullhorn back to John.
“I’m not comfortable with this offer of cutting the draft in half. Fredericks threw in the caveat that the cut was ‘for now.’”
“Then get the statement in writing,” Ernie interjected. “John, it’s about whose ox is getting gored today, at this moment. I’ve lost one grandson in this already in the fight against the Posse; I’m not about to see others getting shipped off, and your decision can be a difference for all of us.”
“Time’s up, Ernie,” Reverend Black announced calmly, holding up his watch. “Next question or comment.”
“I yield my time to Mr. Franklin,” the man behind Ernie announced.
John sighed inwardly but forced a nod of agreement.
“So what is it, John?” Ernie pressed.
“I’ll decide after tomorrow.”
“Why not now? That means fifty-six families can breathe easier tonight.”
“Hey, Ernie, why don’t you back the hell off?” It was Lee Robinson, John’s old neighbor before both their homes were gutted out in the battle with the Posse. “My boy’s been called up, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pressure John to volunteer on the fifty-fifty chance just to save his hide from this. John’s done more than enough already.”
There were mutterings of agreement from the crowd, even though Lee had spoken out of turn.
“Why don’t we see a show of hands here from those who got draft notices if they’re willing to volunteer to go,” Lee pressed in.
Reverend Black picked up on it. “Good suggestion, Lee. How many who received draft notices are willing to volunteer to go?”
John could not help but look over at Elizabeth, who was standing next to Makala, Ben in her arms, nuzzled in against his mother and nearly asleep. She raised her right hand.
He felt a deep swelling of pride but also anguish. It was the torment all loving parents feel when they see their child making a difficult and perhaps dangerous decision as an adult when, in memory, they still see the small innocent child of years long gone.
It seemed as if every person in the crowd looked to her, the daughter of John Matherson. Hand after hand now went up, some swiftly, others reluctantly. One of Ernie’s grandsons raised his hand, even though he had not received a draft notice.
More than half were willing to volunteer, and John felt a lump in his throat. The idealism of youth. Nearly every last one of them had fought in the battle against the Posse. Every one of them had seen death in all the vicious multitude of forms that only a battlefield can deliver, all of them had lost friends and loved ones that day. One of the hands raised was a hollow-eyed young man in his early twenties, and John remembered how he had to be restrained from committing suicide on that day when he found his girlfriend dead, lying in the gutter by the side of the highway where the final minutes of the battle had been fought out. The boy had never recovered, just going through the motions of living, and he most likely welcomed this chance to perhaps honorably end it all at last.
“This is hardly fair,” John said softly, megaphone off so that only those sitting closest to him could hear. He raised his head and motioned for the volunteers to put their hands down, shaking his head. “Ernie, could I have a few minutes?” he asked, and to his surprise, Ernie relented. John was not sure if his opponent of the moment had been taken off guard by the response, including that of one of his grandsons.
“Don’t do this now,” John said, keeping the megaphone off but coming to his feet so that all could see and hear him. “I don’t want to sound like the professor type, but remember, I used to study and teach about stuff like this. We, we here, have made some hard decisions together, and at times, you had to trust me to make them on my own or that the council back in city hall had to make, clear back to that day when those two damned souls, the drug thieves, had to be shot.
“Lee made a fair call with asking who would actually volunteer, but that becomes a group pressure thing, and history has shown us that nine times out of ten, it can be manipulated or go astray. A few score hands go up, and the rest feel guilty, some afraid they’ll be called cowards, others because it is what their friends are doing. And at times, it is dead wrong when a group, whipped up by emotion, is called to make a decision that should be made in private and after deep reflection.”
“How do you feel about this draft?” Ernie replied.
“Personally or in my position in this town?”
“Cut the horseshit. Just how do you really feel about it?”
“I’m a soldier. You never really take the uniform off for as long as you live. We still call ourselves Americans. Some people might think it hokey, but we still sing the national anthem and salute the flag here. So in light of that, if this is a legitimate order from a legitimate government, then I will say that for the sake of national unity, we obey it.”
The crowd now erupted into various factions, some shouting approval, others crying out that they had received damn near nothing from the federal government for two years other than a few rations, and now half of their surviving defenders were being ordered to God knows where. And some shouted that there was no longer a government at all and those in Bluemont could go to hell for getting them into this mess to start with.
The meeting was rapidly breaking down, angry shouting when one of the young women who had raised her hand to volunteer turned on a friend who had refused, called her a traitor and a coward; a fistfight erupted, half a dozen then wading in to break it up.
John felt it a good excuse to try to close things off. He bent over to pick up the bullhorn, feeling light-headed when he stood back up, and clicked it several times to get attention. “A suggestion for all of us,” he announced, and the crowd, which had been focused on the brawl, turned back toward him.
“Ed, could you do me a favor and haul those two hotheads off to the drunk tank until morning and they’ve calmed down?”
There was a time during the first year that none would have dared a brawl at the town meetings, a major reason being that the starving time was so intense that few had the energy. It was also because the draconian response then needed, especially when it came to days when public rations were issued and guards at the favorite pizza restaurant—which had been converted into the bakery for two slices of bread per citizen, heavily laced with sawdust—were ordered by him to shoot to kill if a riot over food broke out.
“Let’s call it a night,” John offered. “We can stay here for hours and argue ourselves blue in the face, and it won’t change anything for the moment.”
“I second John Matherson’s motion,” Reverend Black announced quickly, “and suggest we call it a night. Dawn comes early now, and there’s a lot of work for all of us to see to tomorrow.”