J Bryan - Dominion

Nando took that in for a moment, then pointed at Ruppert. "If he’s not my father, and he’s not your commander, who is he?”

“My name is Daniel,” Ruppert said. “I’m just helping your mother.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s helped me, and now it’s my turn.”

“Oh.” Nando sat back and stared out the window again. Then he asked, “Where is your base?”

“We don’t have a base, Nando,” Lucia said. “We aren’t part of an army.”

“So you’re irregulars.”

“We aren’t soldiers,” Lucia said.

“Intelligence?”

“No.”

“You aren’t civilians, I saw everything you did back there. You’re terrorists, aren’t you?”

“We’re just people, Nando,” she told him. “Just trying to survive.”

“You bombed our base,” Nando said. “You took me prisoner. Who was that on the P.A.?”

“That was me,” Ruppert said.

“You don’t speak Arabic too good.”

“I don’t speak it at all,” Ruppert said. “Just what you hear on the news.”

Nando recited a long, fluid Arabic verse, then smiled and translated, “‘In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds.’ That’s the opener for the Koran.”

“They teach you about Islam?” Lucia asked.

“It’s just for controlling foreigners,” Nando said. “In church we study the New Dominion Bible.”

“That’s what we used at my church, too,” Ruppert said.

After a long pause, Nando asked, “Am I going to Hell for going AWOL?”

“No, Fernando,” Lucia said. “You’re going to be fine.”

Lucia shifted gears to climb a steep, narrow dirt road. They were far from any highway, once again relying on the maps stored in Archer’s dashboard computer. Ruppert hoped there weren’t any surprise washouts ahead, or fallen rocks blocking their path.

The driving was rough, steep, and much slower than they would have liked, but the Rockies provided far more cover than the flat, open lands to the east or west. Lucia said that mountains were the best setting for guerrilla war, the kind of terrain that yielded least to control by central governments, which were more interested in ruling cities and masses of people than rocks and goats.

Nando launched into an enthusiastic monologue on the subject, describing in detail tactics employed by mujahideen against Soviet and American soldiers in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. He seemed to be adjusting to the sudden events fairly well, enjoying the sight of moonlit mountain pinnacles outlined against the stars.

They drove through the night, northward along the roughest mountain roads, Ruppert fading in and out of consciousness. They shared a jug of juice, a bag of nuts and dried berries, a few squares of chocolate. Eventually Nando fell asleep as well.

Ruppert woke to Lucia shaking his arm. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the soft early morning light.

She’d parked by the side of an overgrown dirt track winding through a valley encircled by sheer, dark bluffs. Within the bluffs, blooming meadows and veins of rock sloped down to a clear alpine lake, reflecting the gold and red of the sunrise over the snowy peaks to the east. A white mist emanated from the lake itself, obscuring the far side of the valley.

“What is it?” Ruppert asked.

“Look at this place,” Lucia said. “Have you ever been anywhere like this?”

Ruppert thought of his closest experience, looking at an uninhabited island over a railing as he and Madeline rode the Pirate’s Booty tour boat through the Virgin Islands. The ride had been narrated by Captain Steve, who wore a plastic hook hand, an eyepatch, and an automatronic parrot who squawked one-liners. He shook his head.

“Nando,” Lucia said. “Nando, wake up. We’re stopping for a while.”

The boy stirred, rubbed at his eyes, then gasped at he took in the landscape.

“Can I go outside?” he asked.

They poured out of the truck into the meadow, fragrant and richly colored with late summer blooms. Ruppert stood and stretched, breathing in the pristine air.

“Where are we?” he asked Lucia.

“Wyoming,” she said. “There is nothing out here, no towns. We are as safe as we could be.”

Nando saluted his mother. “Permission to scout the area, sir?”

“Stay where I can see you,” Lucia said. “And you say ma’am when you talk to a woman, not sir.”

“Yes, sir. Ma’am.” Nando clomped through the high grasses and flowers, still dressed in gray pajamas, wearing Ruppert’s extra pair of shoes.

“Do you think that’s safe?” Ruppert passed a hand through the tall grass beside him, nearly as high as his waist.

“He seems disciplined enough.”

Ruppert couldn’t argue with that. They ambled downward along the meadow, toward the glowing lake painted the colors of sunrise. Nando ran far ahead of them, zigging and zagging through the meadow, head low as if avoiding imaginary gunfire.

“Do you think he’ll ever be normal?” she asked.

“I think he’s very prepared for the world he’ll have to live in,” Ruppert said.

They reached the pebbled shore of the lake. The water lay clear and still before them, and Ruppert could see all the way to the stony, sandy bottom. He looked off to their right, where Nando had taken an interest in one of the crooked veins of stone that ran down from the cliffs and divided the meadow into sections. The boy inspected the rocks closely, probably looking for a place to climb.

“How cold do you bet the water is?” Lucia asked.

“Freezing,” Ruppert told her. “Don’t even think about it.”

She kicked off her shoe, dipped a toe in the edge of the lake. “It’s not so bad. I haven’t had a real bath since California. Neither have you.” She pinched her nose, keeping her face solemn.

“This isn’t a real bath, either. Besides, Nando-”

“We can watch him from here.” The boy was walking up along a flat vein of rock toward the dark bluffs, arms wide as if he were navigating a tightrope, though the ridge was wide and low. The gorgeous colors of the morning sky glowed around him.

Lucia peeled off her skirt and tossed it into the grass, then weighed it down with rocks against the cool morning breeze. She waded out into the lake wearing the black panties and the short top she'd purchased to seduce the staff sergeant. She turned back to face Ruppert, smiling and waving, and then dived into the deeper water toward the center of the lake.

Ruppert glanced back towards Nando, who now lay on his back on the stone ridge, looking up at a stream of low, fluffy red and yellow clouds streaming across the sky just above them, nearly close enough to touch.

Ruppert took off his own shoes and jeans, then followed her into the water. It was so cold that it seemed to grab both his legs.

“Better if you just dive in,” Lucia told him. She treaded water several yards from the shore.

“I know that.” Ruppert plunged into the clear depths, dunking his head under the frigid surface to soak his hair. The water was painfully cold, until his skin grew numb.

“That feels so good, doesn’t it?” Lucia said.

“Sure. Ready to get out?”

Lucia swam up to him, her head submerged up to the eyes like an alligator. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pushed her body up against him.

“Thank you for all of this,” she said. “I could not have rescued him without you.”

She gave him a long kiss. For some reason, he could only think of how easily she’d tricked the man from Goblin Valley.

“You don’t have to do this,” he whispered.

She pushed back from him and lay floating on her back, sunlight glittering on her damp skin, eyes closed. “This is the perfect moment,” she said. “Don’t ruin it.”