David Robbins - The Kalispell Run

Plato is not quite fifty years old, and already he has the appearance of someone over seventy before the nuclear war. His brown hair turned completely gray in the space of nine months’ time. Once he was robust and energetic, but now his body is stooped and frail. It’s pathetic.”

“How many Family members did you say have the disease?” Rainbow inquired.

“Only five of the oldest,” Geronimo replied. “But when you only have a population of seventy or eighty to start with, five is a lot.”

Rainbow stepped into the hallway and looked at the front doorway. “I’m not too thrilled at leaving Star alone this long.”

“I’ll hurry as best I can,” Geronimo promised. A table near the center window drew his interest. He peered at a thing with a glass tray at the bottom, four knobs above the tray, and a metallic tube extended beyond the knobs. “Thank the Spirit!”

“What is it?” Rainbow walked inside the lab.

“Found a microscope!” Geronimo elated. “And here’s a rack of vials and test tubes!”

“Keep searching,” Rainbow urged, eager to return to the SEAL.

“I’m on a roll now,” Geronimo stated enthusistically.

“Say,” Rainbow mentioned, “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

“What is it?” Geronimo kept scanning the tables.

“You told me you picked the name Geronimo,” Rainbow said. “I know all about the Family practice of selecting any name you want to use on your sixteenth birthday, about how seriously you view your Naming.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So why did you choose the name of Geronimo? Our tribe has some books, and many of us were taught to read by our parents. I know who Geronimo was. Why did you pick him?” Rainbow watched Geronimo move from table to table.

“It was my Indian heritage,” Geronimo revealed as he sought the items on his list.

Rainbow smiled knowingly. “I can imagine how proud you feel, being an Indian.”

Geronimo glanced at her. “That’s part of it. My parents departed this sphere to join the Great Spirit on high, leaving me as the sole Indian in the Family. For all I knew, I was also the only Indian left alive in the country. This was before we discovered the members of the Family weren’t the only survivors of the Big Blast.”

“But why Geronimo?”

“I admired his indomitable courage. No matter how many hardships befell him, Geronimo refused to give up. He persevered against insurmountable odds. True, he ended his days an alcoholic wreck, but he was essentially a survivor. I could identify with him.”

“That’s it?” Her voice reflected her disappointment.

“What did you expect? Geronimo’s life story?” Geronimo asked, puzzled by her disapproving expression.

“I thought maybe you admired him for another reason,” Rainbow said.

“Like what?”

“Like,” she began, walking toward him, “his intense hatred of the white man and everything the white man stood for.”

“Geronimo?” He stopped searching and stared at her.

“Of course!” Rainbow exclaimed. “He recognized the true character of the whites! They’re deceitful, conniving liars and hypocrites, all of them!

The whites mistreated our forefathers and cheated them at every opportunity. You must know all of this, what with all the books in your Family library.”

Geronimo concealed his reaction to her fiery words and flushed features. Why was she getting so worked up over events long past?

“The Flatheads know the whites can’t be trusted,” Rainbow continued proudly. “We learned from our history. We know what the whites did to the world. After all, it was predominantly white races responsible for starting World War Three, wasn’t it?”

“I never thought of it that way,” Geronimo admitted.

“We are a free people now,” Rainbow said. “And we will never let the whites control us again! If the army from the Citadel has taken my people prisoner, we shall find a way to free them. Did I ever tell you one of my favorite sayings?” she asked, grinning.

“No.” Geronimo was startled by the almost fanatical gleam in her eyes when she talked about the white race.

“Yes,” she giggled. “The only good white is a dead white.”

Geronimo, appalled, leaned against one of the tables. “You can’t be serious!”

“I most certainly am,” Rainbow affirmed.

“But not all whites are bad,” Geronimo objected. “I have close friends who are white…”

“So I noticed,” she said archly.

“But surely all of the Flatheads don’t feel the way you do?” Geronimo inquired.

“Of course they do,” Rainbow said with conviction.

“But your tribe took in that white man from the Citadel,” Geronimo reminded her. “The one who came to live with your people before you were born.”

“Him!” Rainbow snapped, sheer hatred twisting her lovely face. “I didn’t quite tell the whole truth there.” She smiled shyly. “I didn’t want to antagonize Blade.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wasn’t a fugitive.” Rainbow laughed. “He was part of a Citadel patrol we ambushed. We killed all of them, except for one. We took him to an old cabin and locked him in, but he escaped during the night. He was fleeing when he stumbled across some of our women bathing in a stream.”

She savagely pounded the nearest table. “There the bastard was, in our territory, unarmed, running for his life, and he still found the time to rape one of our maidens!”

Geronimo watched her tremble with the intensity of her emotions. He realized her aversion to the whites was all consuming.

“The irony of it all,” Rainbow was saying harshly, “was he raped one of my cousins. My own cousin!” She paused and her muscles hardened. “The fool should have kept going! Our warriors caught up with him and returned him to our meeting hall.”

“What did you do to him?” Geronimo questioned her.

“We tortured the son of a bitch!” Rainbow declared proudly. “We made him tell us everything we wanted to know about the Citadel, and then we peeled his skin from his body while he screamed and pleaded for mercy.

We castrated him,” she said with relish, “and forced him to eat his own genitals. Finally, we slit his throat.”

Geronimo was speechless with horror.

“Our warriors wrapped the body in a blanket and carried it far to the south,” Rainbow continued. “They deposited it in the middle of a heavily traveled road near the Citadel in the dead of night, leaving it as a warning.

That was my idea.” She beamed.

And this was the woman who wanted him to come live with her tribe?

Geronimo silently shook his head.

“Is something the matter?” Rainbow demanded.

“I had no idea,” he told her, “you were so bloodthirsty.”

“And I,” she said stiffly, “had no idea you were so weak.”

Geronimo went to speak, but thought better of it. Her hatred was too ingrained to be influenced by mere words. “I have found several pieces of equipment on the list. Would you give me a hand loading this stuff into the back of the SEAL?”

“Dropping the subject, eh?” she taunted him.

“For now,” he replied.

Working together in strained silence, they quickly loaded the microscope, the test tubes and vials, and other items into the transport.

On each trip from the laboratory Star would unlock the doors at their approach, wait while they deposited their burdens in the rear section of the SEAL, and relock the doors when they re-entered the hospital. On their final trip to the laboratory, as they were lifting a heavy machine designed to evaluate and diagnose hemoglobin properties, they heard a loud thump sound somewhere upstairs.

“What was that?” Rainbow nervously whispered.