Eric Flint - Time spike

Chapter 47 Andy didn't let any of it show on his face, but he was furious. His guards had been driven halfway across the country barefoot. Without food or water. They had been attacked by animals.

And now he had a good friend dying inside a cave. Jenny, Lylah and Barbara were in the cave with Joe. They were working on him, but Jenny hadn't held out much hope. Her biggest concern was making him comfortable. Without narcotics that was almost impossible. Kevin Griffin had handed over a flask of whiskey when he heard about the need. It wasn't a lot, but the whiskey would help. Joe had even managed to make a joke about it. The label on the bottle was no brand of whiskey any of them knew, but it was dated 1836. "This ought to be aged well," he'd said. Afterward, when Andy asked about Joe's chances of surviving, all three of the nurses had looked away. Finally it was Barbara who answered him. "Sometimes," she said, "all you can do is hope for a miracle and pray." "Hulbert and Edelman have a plan they believe will work?" asked Watkins. Andy nodded. It wasn't really a plan. Just part one, with part two to be decided on at a later date. A half dozen guards and the K-9 unit would get as close to the prison as they could under cover of darkness. Their goal was espionage. They would find out how the prison was being guarded. Once they returned, they'd figure out what to do next. In the meantime, the rest of the Cherokees and the guards should have arrived. Andy and Watkins and a handful of others had come ahead. "Who are you sending?" the chief asked. "Hulbert, Marie, and the entire K-9 unit." Watkins sat watching the flames, chewing on the end of a thin twig. "You're letting your anger guide you. That's stupid when so many are depending on you."

"Explain." "First, you should take at least one Cherokee. Kevin Griffin would be the best. Hulbert thinks he's very good in the woods, and… well, he's not bad." Watkins smiled around the twig. "But he's no Cherokee." The chief took the twig out of his mouth and used it to point to a group of men-and one woman, and three children-camped a small distance to the side. "Then, you need to settle with them. If you can do that, you should send a couple of them also. They know the situation better than you do." Andy's jaws tightened. He still hadn't figured out how to handlethat problem. All he needed, on top of everything else! But… He thought about it, for a while. On the minus side, about half of the convicts in Boomer's gang were hardened and habitual criminals. Geoffrey Kidd was an out-and-out contract killer. Dino Morelli had committed his first armed robbery at the age of fifteen. Their leader, on the other hand-both of them, actually, since you had to include Boyne in this category-weren't really criminals. Just men who'd let their temper slip once, and let it slip too badly. That was assuming that Cook was even guilty in the first place, about which Andy had his doubts. After he and Joe Schuler had taken Jenny's advice and started reading the convicts' files, James Cook's had been one of the first Andy had read. His curiosity had been aroused by Cook's deft handling of the Luff problem he'd developed.

Cook might have committed the murder he was convicted of. But what Andy knew for sure-anybody with half a brain could figure this out-was that Cook's trial had been a travesty. If he'd had a competent lawyer he'd have been acquitted. The case against him was the shoddiest kind of connect-the-dots sloppy logic. There'd been no eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, no physical or material evidence, nothing. Just so-called "it stands to reason" that he must have done it. And a gullible or lazy jury. Andy had always known-all the guards did, except a few thickheaded ones-that at least some of the men they guarded were perfectly innocent of the crimes they'd been convicted of. Not most of them, of course. But there were some. Andy had seen over a dozen men exonerated and released in the time he'd worked at the prison-two of whom had been on Death Row. Cook might be another one. Then again, maybe not. And, in any event, there was no question about Kidd's guilt, or Morelli's-or Boyne's, for that matter. All three of them had pleaded guilty to get a reduced sentence. Which, in Kidd's case, saved him from the death penalty. On the plus side…

Well, for starters, there was Elaine Brown. The one time an officious guard had taken it upon himself to lecture Brown on her duty to associate with the other guards instead of the convicts, her response had been short, blunt-and, when they heard about it, had reduced the nurses and Casey Fisher to tears. "Let me see if I've got this straight, Edwards. You think I should leave the men who rescued me from that prison in order to hang out with the people who left me there? Fuck you." Leaving aside the mix of powerful emotions involved, and trying to be as cold-blooded as possible about it, Andy had to admit-even that hardass Rod Hulbert had to admit-that the Boomers' rescue of Brown gave them genuine bona fides. For that matter, so did their rescue of the three Indian kids. And if the principal agent of that rescue had been a contract killer, well… Andy rose to his feet. "You're right, Geoffrey. I'll see if we can work out a deal." He headed toward the Boomers. Seeing him come, Cook made a little gesture and several of the other convicts move aside a bit, giving Blacklock room to sit down by their campfire. Andy didn't see any reason to beat around the bush. "All right, Cook. You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what I want, and we'll see if we can meet somewhere in the middle." "Full and complete parole for everybody in my group. No exceptions. And you might as well call it a 'pardon' instead of a 'parole,' because there's not going to be any bullshit about reporting to parole officers. We're free and clear of all past crimes committed.

Each and every one of us." He shrugged. "I'm not asking for a free pass, Blacklock. Any crimes committed from this day forward will be a different story." "Uh-huh. And who, exactly, will see to that? In case you hadn't noticed, we don't have a police force. No judges and juries, either." "For the time being, I will. Eventually, we'll need to set up our own justice system. But that'll take a while." He gave Andy a somewhat eerie smile, that was impossible to interpret exactly.

"Don't worry about it, Captain. You'll probably have more trouble keeping the peace than I will. My boys are right law-abiding, these days. That's because if any of them cross the line, I already told them I'd just have Geoffrey shoot 'em." Geoffrey Kidd. Now employed in law-enforcement, no less. "Strange world, isn't it?" Cook's smile got some actual humor in it. "But I'll keep my end of the deal. Now, what is it you want?" "We need to take back the prison. Until that's accomplished, you and your men have to be under my authority or the authority of anyone I delegate. And no bullshit about it. I can order men shot too. And I will, if I have to, in a combat situation." "And what else?" "For the time being, that's it. Afterward… To be honest, I don't know. But I don't know about what we'll do with regard to anything, in the future a ways." He nodded toward Watkins, still sitting and chewing on his twig. "The Cherokees, for instance. Will they decide to set up with us, or will they want to keep their own town? I'm figuring the latter, but who knows? And assuming they do keep their own setup, what relationship will they have with us? I have no idea. And I'm not losing any sleep over it, either. First, we've got to get the prison back from Luff and his thugs." "Luff and his crazies, better way to put it," chimed in John Boyne. He looked at Cook. "Sounds like a deal to me, boss." "Yeah, me too. But we'll put this one to a vote." He stood up and motioned for the other Boomers to gather around. Once they'd done so, he said: "Captain Blacklock is offering us a deal. He'll agree to-" He cocked an eye at Andy. "Pick the term." Andy shrugged. "You may as well use 'pardon,' I guess. I'm short of parole officers anyway. Haven't gone a one." "Right. Okay, boys. Here's the deal. The captain gives us-all of us, each and every one-a full and complete pardon. No strings attached. In return, we put ourselves under his military authority until such time as the prison is taken back from Luff." He waited for a few seconds. "Any discussion?" Kidd spoke up. "Yeah. Can I shoot Luff myself?" That brought a low laugh from everybody, including Andy. Cook shook his head. "Whatever Blacklock says, is the answer. But I imagine there's already a long line for that assignment. Any other discussion?" He waited for a few more seconds. "Okay, then. We'll take a vote. All in favor, raise your hands." He and Boyne started to count hands, and then stopped. "Let's do it the other way," said Cook. "Anybody opposed?" Not a single hand went up. Cook nodded and sat back down.