Walter Williams - The Rift

Mrs. Ashenden gave a smile and passed out of the room, leaving behind the faint scent of roses. Jessica paused a moment, trying to collect her thoughts, then followed. In her helmet, BDUs, and heavy boots, she felt very unladylike as she followed in the wake of the Mistress of Clarendon.

And she knew she sure as hell didn’t smell like roses.

Less than two hours ago, one of her big Sikorsky helicopters had simply sat in the water and, with the power of its six titanium-edged composite rotor blades, towed the barge of Poinsett Island waste up the river to a meeting with its towboat. Another helicopter had taken the people off the little bass boat and carried them to Vicksburg along with the boat itself, which had been lashed to the hull of the chopper. By the time they landed, the crew chief of the copter had called Jessica on the radio and told her that, according to his passengers, there were some serious developments in Spottswood Parish, and she had better talk to the people off the bass boat. One of whom, the crew chief added, had been shot.

Jessica had therefore abandoned the rescue of the barge, which seemed to be well in hand, and flown to Vicksburg to interview the boat’s passengers. One of them, the white boy, was carried off by medics the second he landed, but the rest were able to give Jessica a coherent and horrifying picture of the situation in Spottswood Parish.

Prime Power, as usual, was a problem. The Ranger unit that had liberated Rails Bluff had returned that morning to rubble-sorting duties in Greater Memphis, the military police unit that had replaced them was fully occupied, and all of Jessica’s other units were fully committed.

But the situation in Spottswood Parish demanded instant attention, so in the end Jessica flew in with everything she could scrape together: part of her headquarters staff, a few military police, and a platoon of engineers. They took off in four big Sikorsky helicopters so as to seem a more impressive force. By this point she was receiving distress calls from Spottswood Parish itself, from members of the parish council who had first called the Emergency Management people, then been shunted around the various departments of the federal bureaucracy until at last someone had thought to have them contact Jessica.

Landing at Clarendon, she’d been met by local dignitary- a little white-mustached fellow who introduced himself as a judge named Moseley-who had then taken her to the courthouse, where she’d met Mrs. Ashenden, who calmly announced she’d shot the sheriff dead with her derringer and settled the whole problem.

Jessica thought it smelled hinky. She’d been involved with Army politics long enough to know the scent of a cover-up, and she had the feeling a whitewash was settling very solidly into place here, that blame had been preassigned and that certain people- who very conveniently were dead- were going to take the fall. But she didn’t have enough force to simply take over the parish- not yet, anyway- and she didn’t have enough properly trained personnel to launch an investigation. She decided that for the moment she’d settle for keeping all the locals from killing each other.

She called the field near Clarendon where the helicopters had put down, and she sent one of them to the refugee camp north of town, and told them to wait there and prevent any of the locals from disturbing whatever they found there.

Whatever happened, she could preserve the evidence.

She told the sheriff’s department to stand down. She ordered the auxiliaries to go home. She replaced the deputies at the barricades around the Carnegie Library with her own people.

Which put her own soldiers in the middle, between the library and the locals, and this was something she did not like. She made sure more soldiers were on the way- she called the Old Man and asked him to send her a battalion of MPs ASAP- but that still left a lot of armed people in the Carnegie Library who could lose their patience and start shooting up everything in sight whenever they decided to do so. Somebody needed to talk to them.

And she, unfortunately, was the person on the spot.

According to the locals, the people in the library had been calling out that they’d wanted to negotiate since at least the middle of the night. That, at least, was hopeful. So she had a sheriff’s department bullhorn delivered to her, and she shouted out from behind one of the neighboring buildings that someone from the Army was coming out to talk to them, and then she straightened her helmet and her shoulders and took a long breath and walked around the corner, into the sunlight, and into the sights of anyone in the library who cared to shoot her dead.

She marched down the sidewalk until she was opposite the front door of the library, made a precise military 90-degree turn, and crossed the street and onto the uneven concrete walk that led between live oak to the library door. The library loomed before her, clear in the right eye, a blur in the left. Jessica stopped halfway to the door, by the blackened remains of a burnt-out police car, and dropped into the at-ease position, feet balanced and apart, hands clasped behind her back. She cleared her throat. Her hammering pulse rang inside her helmet like a bell.

If the locals want a massacre, she thought, this is where I’m shot dead. And if the people in the library want to make another point, they can shoot me, too.

“Is there a Nick Ruford in the building?” she called.

She hoped that tension hadn’t tautened her vocal cords to the point where she sounded like one of the Chipmunks.

There was a moment’s pause, and then a voice answered, “I’m Nick Ruford.”

“I’m Major General J. C. Frazetta, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I am taking command in this parish as of now. I spoke to your wife and daughter a couple hours ago, and they want you to know that they’re safe and well.”

There was another pause. “Where are they?” asked Nick.

“They are at my headquarters in Vicksburg. They came down the Mississippi on a little boat, and encountered some of my units conducting a search-and-rescue mission.”

When Nick next spoke there was a tremor in his voice, as if relief had almost sent him into a swoon. “And the other families?” he asked. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know,” Jessica said. “I have no reason to believe they are anything other than safe.”

There was a buzz of voices from inside the library. Jessica waited a moment, then spoke again.

“Mr. Ruford, may I come inside? It will make things easier, I think.”

There was more discussion. Jessica distinctly heard someone say, “We don’t let Whitey in our castle!” but in the end the front door swung open, and Nick Ruford’s voice came from the interior.

“Please come in, General.”

“I’ll take off my sidearm first,” Jessica said. She took off her pistol belt, put it on the trunk of the burnt-out car, then walked into the library.

The tang of gunsmoke still hung in the still air. There were about fifteen men in the library, and two women, all armed. All were bigger than Jessica. Not all of them looked friendly.

“I’m Nick Ruford,” one of the men said. He was in his mid-thirties, Jessica judged, with a week’s growth of beard and a pistol on his hip. He stood somewhat behind the open door, and he limped to the door and pushed it shut.

Jessica’s heart gave a leap. She had been hoping not to be shut in with these people.

Instead she looked at them. Tried to make eye contact with each in turn. Allowed herself a slight smile.

“Mr. Ruford’s family has told me what’s been taking place here. That’s why I am placing this area under military control and calling in troops. The first units have already landed. The local sheriff, who may have been responsible, was shot dead last night. His department has been taken off duty. I believe the crisis will shortly be over, and you will be reunited with your families.”