Citadel Run

Chapter Eleven

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Geronimo declared.

“So do I,” Blade agreed apprehensively. They were standing near the western gate in the stockade, Zahner, Bear, and Bertha alongside them, staring outside the enclosure at a large group of prisoners. The soldiers, under the direction of Colonel Jarvis, had taken several hours to remove a couple of hundred of the captives, herding the unfortunates chosen into a compact mass only a few dozen feet west of the stockade. AH of the troopers had participated, with fifty training their weapons on the group being separated from the main body, while the rest of the soldiers kept their eyes on the compound.

“What are they up to now?” Zahner asked anxiously. “Do you think they’re going to truck us to the Civilized Zone in stages?”

“Didn’t anyone else notice?” Bertha ventured. “The bastards only took the oldest ones out of here and some of the young ones. Not the real little kids, mind you, but ones about ten to twenty. Didn’t you see it?”

Blade had seen it, but hesitated to comment, reluctant to instill fear and panic in the prisoners. What was it Jarvis had said earlier?

Something about having two hundred or so captives too many? “What do I do with the excess?” Jarvis had remarked. What was he going to do with those poor souls out there?

Colonel Jarvis, with Captain Rice at his left elbow, approached the barbed wire.

“Here comes the chief prick himself,” Bertha muttered. “Lordy, how I’d love to cram his teeth down his throat!”

“I see I have your undivided attention, Blade,” Jarvis said greeting the Warrior as he stopped next to the fence.

“Don’t do it,” Blade said softly.

“But I must,” Jarvis countered. “You know that.”

“Do what?” Zahner interjected. “What are you planning to do with them?”

Colonel Jarvis clasped his hands behind his back and puffed up his chest. “You might consider this as object lesson number two. The first lesson was when those others managed to sneak out under the fence the other night. How many were there? Fifty-two, I believe?” He glanced at Blade. “Have you told them yet?”

Zahner clasped Blade’s right arm. “Told us what? Didn’t they make it?”

Blade averted his eyes and shook his head.

Zahner turned, his eyes blazing his hatred. “Damn you!” He lunged at Jarvis, his arms between the strands of barbed wire.

Jarvis deftly side-stepped, chuckling. “I’d behave myself, if I were you, Zahner. Or maybe you want me to haul more of your people out here?”

Zahner gripped the wire, heedless of the pain, his arms quivering, as a loud groan racked his body.

“Good!” Jarvis grinned. “That’s a good boy. But I want to demonstrate how fair I can be. Notice.” He waved his right arm and three soldiers ushered another trooper in the direction of the group outside the stockade. The trooper being compelled to join the two hundred was unarmed, his face white as a sheet.

“He’s the one who fell asleep at his post,” Jarvis explained, “permitting those fifty-two to escape.”

Bertha took a step toward the fence, her fists clenched. “You’d best not do what I think you’re gonna do!” she threatened.

Colonel Jarvis feigned a shudder. “You scare me to death, bitch! Would you like to come out here too?”

“Any time you’re ready!” Bertha snapped defiantly.

“Yes, you probably would,” Jarvis said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you, my dear. Cheer up, though! You’ll have a front-row seat, as it were.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Blade stated. “You could release them. No one would ever know.”

“Be serious!” Jarvis scoffed. “What do you take me for? I am a soldier and I have my duty.”

“Is that how you justify it?” Blade angrily demanded. “By telling yourself you’re just doing your duty?”

Jarvis only smiled and turned, facing the clustered bunch of prisoners and the fifty soldiers encircling them.

“Please!” Zahner pleaded. “I beg of you! Have mercy!”

Colonel Jarvis looked over his left shoulder, his slit of a mouth twisted in contempt. “Mercy is for weaklings! In case you haven’t noticed, the law of life is the survival of the fittest! And we are the fittest!” He nodded at Captain Rice.

A hush fell over the entire compound as the prisoners suddenly realized what was about to transpire.

“Ready!” Captain Rice shouted.

Blade leaned forward. “I just want you to know, Jarvis, that if I ever get the chance, I’m going to personally see to it that you get everything you have coming to you!”

“You shouldn’t take things so personally,” Colonel Jarvis said over his shoulder. “Fighting men like us must develop a detached, aloof attitude toward scum like these. You must learn to be objective, Blade.” He paused.

“I might add that I’m finding you to be a bit of a disappointment. I’d heard so much about you and your renowned fighting ability, and now I discover you are little more than a simpering weakling.”

“Aim!” Captain Rice yelled.

Blade couldn’t recall an instance in which he had felt more helpless than he did now. He knew what was coming, but he couldn’t prevent it, he was unable to save the two hundred doomed to be slaughtered. For a moment, he thought the fifty soldiers ringing the victims would perform the actual execution, but then he heard the metallic click of a bolt being thrown above his head and he looked up at the western sentry tower.

There were four troopers in the tower, and one of them had the big machine gun aimed at the two hundred people below. Blade couldn’t identify the make or manufacture of the mounted machine gun; he only knew it was impressive and undoubtedly deadly. If they were utilizing the mounted gun for their butchery, then the fifty soldiers surrounding the group were there to prevent anyone from escaping.

“Lordy!” Bertha mumbled, terrified. “Please don’t let them do it!”

“Fire!” Rice screamed.

Pandemonium ensued.

Those within the barbed wire watched helplessly as horrifying carnage erupted outside.

The machine gun in the sentry tower opened up, the gun roaring as the heavy slugs ripped into the packed innocents below. Many of the two hundred attempted to escape their fate; they bolted in every direction, fleeing for their lives, panic-stricken, some voicing their fear at the top of their lungs as they shrieked and wailed. The fifty soldiers encircling the victims were enjoying themselves, shooting those who endeavored to escape before they could manage more than ten yards. Old or young, male or female, it didn’t matter, they were indiscriminately massacred, their bodies being struck again and again and again, their faces contorted as they were hit, the slugs tearing through them, causing them to jerk and writhe and twist and squirm before they fell to the hard ground, lifeless.

Even after they dropped, it wasn’t over. The soldiers kept raking the group with fire, round after round pouring into the deceased, creating the illusion the dead forms were still alive as they flopped and jumped from the force of the impact.

The killing went on and on and on.

And finally ceased.

The silence following the gruesome execution seemed preternatural, as the troopers surveyed their handiwork and the prisoners in the compound gaped at the torn and bleeding bodies of their relatives and friends.

Colonel Jarvis faced the stockade, smiling. “Now you know I am not to be trifled with!” he announced. “If any of you give me any trouble whatsoever, I will do to you what I just did to them!” He glanced at Zahner and Bear. “You are their leaders. I will hold you accountable if trouble arises. Have I made myself perfectly clear?”

Zahner gazed up at the sentry tower, then at the corpses on the field.

“You have made yourself clearer than anyone else I have ever known.”

“Good.” Jarvis nodded, staring at Blade. “I’ll have Rice fetch you in an hour. My men are erecting a tent and we shall dine together.”

“What makes you think I would join you for a meal?” Blade demanded.

Jarvis started to walk off. “Oh, you’ll come, all right, if motivated by nothing more than curiousity. See you in an hour.” He departed, walking toward the trucks.

“Okay, men!” Captain Rice ordered. “Let’s hop to it and clean up this mess! There will be no evening meal until it’s done!” He strolled off, organizing the work detail.

“How could anyone eat after witnessing… that?” Zahner asked.

“Why’d they do it?” Bear inquired, looking at Blade.

“They were excess,” Blade replied.

“Excess?”

Blade nodded. “Jarvis told me earlier there were about two hundred more prisoners than he could accommodate in his trucks. Now everyone will fit into the troop transports and the Army won’t need to make two trips.”

“I’m goin’ to waste that sucker!” Bertha vowed.

“You’ll have to stand in line,” Blade told her.

“What’s this about a meal?” Zahner queried.

“Beats me,” Blade said shrugging. “Jarvis insists on having a meal with me. Maybe he wants to gloat some more.”

“It’s odd…” Geronimo began, his brow furrowed.

“What’s odd?” Blade wanted to know.

“I could be wrong,” Geronimo elaborated, “but I get the impression Jarvis is treating us, and especially you, as if we’re some kind of celebrities.”

“You’re off your rocker,” Blade informed him. “The only reason we’re still alive is because Samuel the Second wants to kill us himself.”

“Could be,” Geronimo agreed, “but haven’t you noticed how hard Jarvis tries to impress you, how he’s tacitly seeking your approval of his actions?”

Blade smiled. “Have you been reading the psychology books in the Family Library again?”

“Are you goin’ to eat with that son of a bitch?” Bertha demanded angrily.

“Yes.”

“Traitor!” she snapped.

“Bertha, I don’t have any choice. They’d probably drag me off if I refused. Besides, Jarvis is right. I am curious. I may learn some important information that will aid us in escaping.”

Bear swept his left arm around the stockade. “How can we get out? They’ve doubled the guard since the others got out under the fence the other night. And look at all that hardware. How can we get out of this?”

“We’ll find a way,” Blade assured him. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“You Family types sure got a lot of cornball sayings!” Bertha remarked.

“If you think Blade is corny,” Geronimo interjected, “just wait until you see Hickok again. If you peeled his ears, you’d have enough to feed everyone here.”

“I don’t believe you, man!” Bear snapped testily, annoyed. “You’re cuttin’ jokes after what just happened?”

“Humor nourishes the soul,” Geronimo said, surprised by Bear’s outburst.

Blade guessed that Bear was severely disturbed by the massacre, and he tried to assuage Bear’s grief. “As Warriors, we’ve seen a lot of gory sights,” he said slowly. “I’m sure you have too. If you think about it, about the brutality all around you, if you dwell on it and mope over it, it’ll get to you.

You’ll be depressed all the time, and you’ll become cynical and hard. The tougher things get for us, the more we tend to joke to safeguard our sanity, to prevent us from being emotionally ravaged. It alleviates stress if you concentrate on the lighter side of life.”

“I think I got you,” Bear stated, “but I don’t think I could do it. I can’t shrug things off the way you guys do.”

“It’s not that we shrug them off,” Geronimo corrected. “We’re affected by violence, just like you. Only it’s our business, and we learned a long time ago to take it in stride, as calmly as possible. Humor helps immensely. Otherwise, you’d go nuts!”

“Hey! What are they doin’?” Bertha suddenly asked, aghast, pointing.

The soldiers were loading the bodies onto the trucks for transport to a disposal site. In the process of carting the corpses to the trucks, they were searching the bodies for any valuables. They were treating the deceased roughly and talking and smiling while they worked.

“If it’s the last thing I ever do,” Bertha pledged, “I’m going to get Jarvis for this!” She glanced at Blade. “Is Joshua with you this time too?”

Blade insured none of the troopers were close enough to eavesdrop.

“Yes, he is. Why?”

“Because the last time you were here, he tried tellin’ me all about this God business…” Bertha began.

“You can’t blame God for this,” Blade said cutting her off. “Humans don’t always do what the Spirit leads them to do. Some mortals even shut God out of their lives entirely.”

“So you say,” Bertha rejoined. “Me, I’m not so sure. I think if I bump into Joshua and he starts yakkin’ about God, and how we live in a universe of love, as he called it, and goes on about how all of us are brothers and sisters…” She paused and smiled at a thought she had. “Then I think, just for the hell of it, I’m goin’ to haul off and sock him in the mouth.”