Eric stepped up on the porch and thumped Caleb on the shoulder, speaking in his North Carolina drawl. “You’re awful early. Nothing better to do this mornin’?”
“Like what, wait for somebody to put me to work? Hell no. Sergeant Kelly had our passes ready to go when I got to the VFW Hall. Took off as soon as he signed me out.”
“Any clue where the other guys are?”
“Sleeping, last I saw ‘em.”
Eric pursed his lips and nodded. “Figures. Miranda inside?”
“Yep.”
“Need anything? Had breakfast yet?”
“I’m good.”
“Cool. Be back in a bit.”
The door shut behind Eric. Caleb heard muted voices as the R in G&R Transport and Salvage exchanged greetings with Miranda.
He knew the story of how Eric and Gabriel Garrett, Riordan’s business partner and best friend, had rescued Miranda from the Free Legion. He also knew that while the two men accepted his relationship with Miranda, they were also ever watchful, and as fiercely protective of her as she was unswervingly loyal to them. Although he didn’t need it, it was good motivation to treat her with the utmost kindness and respect. Riordan and Garrett were two men on whose bad side he had no desire to be.
At 0915, Sanchez and his crew arrived. They greeted Caleb with smiles and loud talking. He nodded silently in response, accepting handshakes when they were offered. Private First Class Anthony Vincenzo took a seat next to him.
“Nice morning, huh?” he said in his pronounced New York accent.
“Yep. Sure is.” Caleb was silent a moment, then said, out of curiosity, “Say, Tony, what part of New York are you from?”
Vincenzo took a small bag of rare and valuable tobacco from his pocket, papers from another, and began rolling a cigarette. “Brooklyn. Why?”
Caleb shrugged. “Just wondering.”
“You’re from Texas, right?”
“Yep.”
“What part?”
“Right outside of Houston. Small town.”
“I been to Houston.”
Caleb looked at him. “No shit?”
“No shit. Had an aunt lived down there, my mother’s sister. Used to live in Poughkeepsie. Went down there for business and met some guy, worked for an oil company. Moved down to marry him. Ma took me and my sister to see her when we were teenagers.”
“Huh. Small world. What’d you think of the place?”
“Tell you the truth, when Ma told me we were going, I was pissed. All I knew about Texas was shit I saw on TV. Nothing that appealed to a New Yorker, you know? But I was surprised when I got down there. It was nice. Cleaner than New York. Open. Felt like I’d been inside this box, and didn’t know there was a world out there, and somebody opened the box and let me out. The first morning we were there we were staying at my aunt’s place, and she lived in this nice little suburb, clean air, plenty of parking, and I woke up before everybody else and stepped out on her back patio and took a breath, and it was the cleanest breath I’d ever taken. Felt like I was breathing for the first time. Years later, I always wanted to go back. I love New York, don’t get me wrong. But I always told myself I’d get back down there someday. Breathe that air again.”
Caleb looked out across the distance of the town square, and time, and said, “Sorry to disappoint you, but there ain’t much left of Houston, now.”
Vincenzo lit his cigarette and inhaled. “I remember from the news. Fires were pretty bad down there, right?”
“Bad is an understatement. The sky was black and orange like a campfire at night. Ash fell from the sky like snow. The wind was hot and dry, like standing in front of the world’s biggest blow dryer. You couldn’t go outside without goggles and something tied around your nose and mouth. The fires drove the infected out into the countryside, thousands and thousands of them. We were lucky any of us managed to get out of there alive.”
Caleb watched a robin bouncing around in the grass a few feet away, the images of that era of his life flashing before his mind’s eye. More than a minute passed before he realized Vincenzo was staring at him.
“Sorry,” Caleb said, glancing aside. “Got lost for a minute there.”
Vincenzo patted him on the back. “Don’t sweat it. Happens to me all the time.”
The two soldiers shared a comfortable silence as they waited for the rest of Delta Squad to arrive. As minutes ticked by and Delta did not show up, Sanchez’s squad of militiamen grew increasingly impatient. One of them asked Caleb where the hell his guys were, to which he responded with a condescending, “How the hell should I know?”
“They’re your squad.”
Caleb stood up and held out his arms. “You see a radio anywhere, dumbshit?”
The militiaman sullenly relented.
Eric came outside and looked around, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. He looked at Sanchez. “No sign of them?”
The former professional boxer—once known to the sports media as the Pride of Hermosillo—shook his head. “Nada, jefe. Something’s not right. They should have been here by now.”
Moments later, the clomping of hooves sounded in the town square a few blocks down, preceding the appearance of a rider around the corner of town hall. The man in the saddle was Quentin Reid, an earnest young sheriff’s deputy who, while off duty, utilized his family’s brown Saddlebred mare to earn extra trade by working as a messenger. He had another horse in tow, one of Echo Company’s quarter horses.
“Please tell me something good,” Eric called out as the deputy approached. The young man shook his head.
“Delta Squad’s been called to company HQ, along with the rest of their platoon. Lieutenant Jonas sent me here to round up Specialist Hicks.”
Without a word, Caleb stood up, walked over to the quarter horse, and swung into the saddle. The creature accepted his weight with meek indifference. He guessed it at about seven years old, Kentucky bred, and by the sway in its back, had spent its years under the weight of countless heavy burdens. Whoever saddled the beast had done so sloppily, with no regard for the animal’s comfort. Caleb rubbed its neck and inwardly vowed to track down the responsible party and correct this affront to the dignity of such a humble, affable mount.
As they turned their horses to leave, Eric called out to them. “Has First Platoon left yet?”
Deputy Reid looked over his shoulder. “No, not yet. They’re waiting on Hicks.”
Caleb met Riordan’s eyes and knew what he was thinking. Nosy bastard. “Come on then,” Caleb said. “I’ll tell the Lieutenant you threatened to buy his gambling debts if I didn’t bring you along.”
Eric grinned savagely as he accepted Caleb’s hand and climbed into the saddle behind him. “You know, that’s not such a bad idea.”
Caleb fought down a laugh as they took off in a clamor of iron-shod hooves on crumbling pavement.
NINE
Lieutenant Jonas was not surprised.
“You have a way of sticking your nose into things, don’t you?” he asked Eric. The old soldier stood at the north gate, his platoon in ranks behind him waiting for the guards to let them out.
Caleb stood out of the saddle and stepped down, followed closely by Riordan as he walked over to his platoon CO. Jonas directed his disapproving gaze in Caleb’s direction. “How’d he Shanghai you into this?”
Caleb stepped close and kept his voice low. “Probably best if I don’t say it publicly, sir.”