The Last President

^{THE NEXT DAY. TIPPECANOE BATTLE GROUND, NEW STATE OF WABASH. 3:30 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

“That’s why we never heard back from the TexICs,” Goncalves breathed. He passed his field glasses to Larry Mensche.

In the bright light of the few-days-past-full moon, Larry made out the breastwork, now much higher, actually a full wall—“Oh, crap.” The upper part of the barricade was a heap of dead horses.

Goncalves grunted. “I figure what happened, the tribals were here way ahead of schedule, dug in and waiting. Three hundred against four thousand.”

“But the TexICs were on horseback,” Larry said. “How come none of them got away?”

The bright, almost-overhead moonlight distorted Goncalves’s face into a bitter mask. “If Robert was smart, and we know he is, what he did was put fifteen hundred or so inside the camp, lying along the breastworks, out of sight and waiting. He put another fifteen hundred right where we are now, in all this brush, ready to close the road back, probably with bows and slings to cover the exposed slope, and told them not to make a sound or move a muscle till the TexICs were at the main breastwork. Same orders to another thousand across the creek in the woods northwest of the camp; a horseman might try to get out that way and then double back, but he wouldn’t get far if there were men in the woods.

“So the TexICs arrived, and from right about here—look how torn up the ground is just downslope—they probably saw a couple sentries or a few men working, and went to charge up that steep hill—figuring they’d carry the top of it and then sweep through the camp. Maybe they even split up and sent some around over the creek, by that old visitor center—it would be more effective if they were just on a burn-and-smash raid, they’d damage more stuff faster. Probably they had a minute or so, riding up to the barricade, of thinking this was an easy win.

“But Robert or someone working for him knows what they’re doing; they put that wall up right along the top of that railroad embankment, so the last few feet are steep gravel after all the effort of getting up that steep hill. You can bet that broke the shock of the charge, created a big jam right there at the wall.

“So as soon as they were all bogged down, in ground that was terrible for horses, Robert’s troops inside stood up, the troops back here closed in from behind, and the TexICs were in the bag, exposed on bad ground, and if they broke out on either flank they ran right into that reserve force in the woods across the creek. Horses on a steep hillside, or in a brushy creek, wouldn’t have much of a chance. No room to charge or build up momentum. Their horses were pulled down or killed under them, the range was so close that those shitty bows, or just thrown rocks or long poles, would be all it took. Cavalry on foot’s pretty helpless and they were outnumbered a dozen to one.”

“Shit,” Larry said. And Roger Jackson was with them—Was. He was already thinking of Roger in the past tense. Hope it was quick.

Goncalves said, “Tell Grayson we need him sooner, not later.”

“You’re still going in?”

“That’s what General Grayson’s orders were, and it’s what I said I’d do. We can take them, I think, or at least take a big toll. There’s only four thousand and we’ve got seven hundred Rangers. We’ll get inside their camp and hold at least part of it, make them pay to take it back, tie them up and delay them. But if the next big bunch of tribals gets here before Grayson does, you can count us dead. So tell him to get his ass in gear, and if he gets here in time, I will definitely consider voting for him.”

From their vantage point, Mensche ran back along the deer trail through the marshy meadow, zagged onto an old park trail, and angled down toward the river till he struck a road.

In the light of the nearly overhead moon, shadows were sharp and very dark, distances confusing, ambush more than possible, but now that the brush hid him from the fortified camp, he put his whole mind into staying alert and keeping his feet moving.

He kept up his pace, figuring that if he fell down exhausted at the other end they could throw him into an artillery wagon or something, and if he got there too late, he’d have a lot of time to sleep while he was dead. Pace after pace, hill after hill, he pushed the parkland and overgrown fields behind him. At last, when the last mile or so had been warehouses along the river, the sinking moon, now halfway down the western sky, backlit the I-65 bridge, where Larry was planning to re-cross the Wabash. Forcing himself to be as alert as he could be on two days of too much running, too few meals, and about four hours of sleep, he moved forward in the shadows to look over the situation from a low rise in the road.

He looked once, froze, and glided into the shadow of a wall, gulping air silently, pressing it in and out as fast as he could without gasping or making noise. When he had pushed enough oxygen in to stop the spasming of his lungs and silence the burning in his thighs, so that he could again move silently, he began sliding his feet forward, one after the other, in a crescent step, keeping them mostly in each other’s tracks, feeling gently in front of him.

Behind the thick weeds that grew from the decayed asphalt at the building corner, he squatted and peered around.

A milling mob of tribals at the far end of the bridge, too indistinct to count. Hundreds of spearpoints stuck up above the dark mass. Below the bridgehead, a vast crowd of rafts and boats had been dragged up onto the bank. Farther upstream, the Wabash danced and twinkled with the phosphorescence of countless oars, paddles, and poles. Well over ten thousand of them, maybe nearer twenty, not counting at least a thousand at the bridge. We thought the two big forces coming down the Tippecanoe were the main force, but they were a diversion. These must have come down the Wabash.

No way to reach Grayson with a report.

Then he thought of Mark Twain’s favorite pun.

The State Street Bridge should be close enough; he’d need to be up above ground level, so the sound would carry across the river, but he ought to be able to at least get the attention of the scouts on the far side, and maybe the sound would carry as far as the northeast sentries in Grayson’s camp.

Quickly, silently, Larry Mensche moved forward, tiredness forgotten for the moment. Because he could only try this once, and it had to be soon, he needed a perfect place right away.

Fifteen minutes later, he had found it—a former supermarket warehouse. The door gave way to prying with his hatchet with only one soft squeal of metal. A more-than-head-high pile of empty cardboard boxes, pallets, and crates covered most of the open space on the first floor; obviously this place had been looted in the early, systematic time right after Daybreak day. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, where he’d seen windows facing the direction he needed. In the office up there, he discovered a family of mummies lying in one corner; smashed skulls on the two largest suggested they had been killed as they were waking up. More murder victims than I saw in twenty years’ FBI service, and nothing to do about them.

The river-facing window revealed a little gray light creeping onto the eastern horizon. The State Street Bridge, just upstream, didn’t rise far above the river; Larry was looking at it almost on the level. The concrete pilings cut the smeary gray pre-dawn into dim rectangles; the facings still shone in the setting moon’s light.

He picked up a metal folding chair with a rotted plastic seat and swung it experimentally. Get this right. He checked his Newberry Standard by feel, set it on the desk within easy reach, picked up the folding chair again, and smashed the chair into the window, legs first, clearing all the glass with five hard blows in a couple of breaths.

He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and looked through the sights, scanning the bridge from the near to the far side.

A little group of Daybreakers were running across the bridge, drawn by the sound. He aimed for the leader of the group and squeezed the trigger. He didn’t seem to have hit anyone but they vanished, diving for the bridge deck.

Another group was gathering at the far bridgehead. He aimed low and sent a shot shrieking off the crumbling pavement in front of them; they also dove to the ground.

The shots might have already alerted Grayson, but to make sure, Mensche re-sighted on the center of the big crowd on the road, perhaps a quarter mile beyond the bridge. Actual sniping would be impossible even for an expert, because a Newberry just wasn’t a precision weapon, but he ought to be able to put three bullets at head-to-chest height in a crowd hundreds of yards across. Carefully, but quickly, he fired his last three shots.

Screams, wails, and a sudden milling like a kicked-over anthill told him he’d scored at least once.

The groups moving toward him would not be here for three minutes at least. He used one minute to reload.

Well, that was five reports, as Mark Twain would have written, and even if the shots couldn’t be heard in Grayson’s camp, it’s for sure that all that screaming was. Rifle held ready across his chest, Mensche trotted down the stairs to the huge pile of dry wood, paper, and cardboard.

He tore out and crumpled a few pieces of cardboard and paper, then dropped them into a heap at his feet. He struck a match, lit the little pile, let it blaze up, tossed half a dozen cardboard boxes onto it, and sprinted out the door.

At the first alley, he dodged left, then right at the next street, and so forth in a saw-blade pattern to take him north and west.

He glanced back when he heard distant crashes and shouts; a black stream of smoke, lit by orange and red flashes from below, stained the pink dawn sky. Guess that was pretty ready to go. Well, now they’re alert for sure over at camp.

He kept trotting, beyond exhaustion, hoping to stay alert enough to make them work to catch him.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. RUINS OF LAFAYETTE. 5:25 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

Jenny Whilmire Grayson rose early, dressed hurriedly, and rushed to get to the bathroom, hoping no one would see her awkward walk or the bruise on her cheek. I am the very model of a modern major general’s abused wife, fuck you all very much.

Fortunately, most of the camp were still sleeping like corpses. The night sentries and patrols recognized her in the dim light of the just-rising sun and didn’t stop to question her. She almost ran the last fifty yards to the small concrete-block restroom.

Inside, there was the usual thoughtfully-provided array of buckets of river water for flushing. One more way for Jeff to show off wealth and power. Some poor loser private had to carry buckets of water half a mile to provide convenient indoor urination for the Great Man’s piece of shit whore.

Still, she was too grateful to feel cynical about the pile of soft rags. She lit the candle in the stall, lowered her jeans, and sat down.

It distinctly stung and ached when she peed. The puddle of urine at the bottom of the dry bowl was pink. A wipe with a light-colored rag confirmed that she was bleeding.

Too soon to be an infection, probably that rough thing he does… guiltily, she remembered that it had sometimes gotten her off. Yeah, okay, so sometimes I have liked it. When I wanted to. When he was in control of himself. When my husband wasn’t satisfying his need to rape a piece of shit whore.

She dipped a clean cloth in a bucket of water, and washed her face with gentle thoroughness. When she finished, she sighed, mentally braced herself, and looked into the mirror. She lifted her sweatshirt and lowered her pants, turning to shine the candlelight on the marks on her sides and back.

Jeff had really outdone himself this last time. I guess once your piece of shit whore flunks her putting-up-with-abuse test and doesn’t love you anymore, you might as well use her up before you throw her away.

She covered up again, and used the cool cloth to soothe her bruised cheek, and catch her tears. All right. That was the last time I will think that phrase on purpose. The words have done what I needed them to, pissed me off enough to break me away from that son of a bitch. But now I will not think them about myself.

Also I will not cry when I tell Daddy. And I will not throw anything about this in his face. We were both ambitious and we thought Jeff Grayson was the ticket to our ambitions. We both trusted him enough to commit murders with him. Maybe I should have known better, maybe I should have guessed more of what was wrong, but, well, Daddy, I will still think that useful phrase, “fuck it.”

She thought back to her many arguments with Dr. Otherein in Women’s Studies, back at Sarah Lawrence, who had always seemed to enjoy their arguments, even when they became shouting matches. At the time Jenny had thought it was maybe some weird dyke thing about liking to see the hot straight girl so angry she was in tears. Now all of a sudden, I’m glad you insisted on me understanding that “blaming the victim” concept. You even said it didn’t matter if I believed it then, just so I understood it.

All right, no blaming the victim. And in this mess, Daddy would be—

Very far away and faintly, she heard the distant boom of a Newberry Standard—you couldn’t mistake that sound for anything else. Another shot.

Three more like a fast drumbeat.

Screaming and shouting in the distance.

Whatever it is, it’s starting.

She tucked a soft cloth into her underwear, refastened her pants, patted her face once more with a cloth, poured her wash bucket into the toilet to flush it, and snuffed the candle.

Patrols and sentries were running back and forth in the street, shouting to each other that they didn’t know what was going on. Hoping her blonde mane would serve as a pass, she sprinted for HQ, not sure—

Shouts.

Shots.

Metal clashing on metal.

Ahead of her, people were yelling and the words included “HQ!” and “The general!”

A soldier blocked her way. “Mrs. Grayson, you’d better not go—”

She dodged around him and sprinted into the office that still said 4H COMPETITION ADMINISTRATION on the door.

Jeff Grayson lay sprawled, eyes and mouth wide open, across the desk. His throat was a gory mess, a hatchet still embedded there. One arm dangled toward the floor; the other lay by his side as if still reaching for his holster.

Four other corpses: Oxford, Grayson’s XO, still clutched his pistol, but lay dead with a knife driven in through one eye. A messenger had had time to draw her pistol as well; her misshapen head was explained by the ax still in the hands of the one tribal, a young man in a black tunic and pants, whose forehead had been torn away; probably Oxford had shot him while he was chopping down the messenger.

“We saw them, we chased them, they got in here before—” the soldier beside her was saying. When had he come in?

“That’s all right.” Jenny reached out to Jeff’s face. In the movies you just press their eyelids down gently. Her fingers slipped over his lids and touched the drying surfaces of his eyes, so she pressed a little more firmly and pinched the lids shut; they stayed that way. It did help.

“Get a messenger,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gave Jeff one last long final look, then surprised herself by kissing his already-cooling cheek. “Bye, baby. Hope the next life brings you more peace than this one did. I’m sorry, I did promise we’d say goodbye, but I didn’t know you’d be going this soon.” It seemed terribly sad that now that he could never hurt her again, she was free to admit that she would miss him too.

A messenger gasped in mid-salute.

“Deputize two other messengers and let all the captains and Majors Pilkington and Selniss know that—”

“Ma’am, Pilkington and Selniss have been assassinated and a bunch of captains and lieutenants as well.”

Jenny became belatedly aware of how much shouting, screaming, and shooting, she had been hearing. She drew a deep breath. “Deputize all messengers. This message to every unit: Your highest surviving rank is now your commander, and if they haven’t assumed command yet, do it now. To the new commander, if you are on the line, back up slowly to the nearest position you’re sure you can defend. Coordinate with units on each side of you, remain in contact, do not allow a gap. All units not on the line right now, have them do”—she gestured—“I don’t know the word for it, a slow outward spiral, say clockwise on the map for consistency, from wherever they are till they reach the line. Kill any Daybreaker they find inside the lines, no prisoners, no time for it. Spiral outward, make sure they cover all the ground. When they get to the line, find the nearest… joint, connection, whatever, between two units on the line, and fill in behind to close it up.

“Exceptions to that: nearest company to the hospital, secure the hospital; nearest two companies to the stables, secure those.

“As soon as each unit is in position, have them send a runner back here to report where they are and what the situation is. At… nine o’clock, oh nine hundred, I guess, if we’re not still under attack, all officers above lieutenant will meet here to sort it out.”

The messenger repeated it back—accurately, as near as Jenny could tell, since she wasn’t sure she remembered what she had said herself, and he’d translated some of it into military terms she wasn’t sure about. When he saluted, she reflexively returned it and then kicked herself mentally, but he didn’t seem to notice, already half-gone. A moment later she heard galloping hooves.

At least some messengers are going somewhere, she thought, and there are some orders, and that is more than we had a few minutes ago.

Outside headquarters, she found Third Squad, Second Platoon, something or other Company, as a young woman with a single stripe on the arm of her heavy gray flannel shirt started to explain to her. “Never mind that,” Jenny said. “Whoever your company may be, are they close by?”

“Yes, ma’am, Sergeant Patel’s in command, the officers are dead, Sergeant Patel, he sent us—”

“Run and tell Sergeant Patel that he’s a captain now and have him bring the company here; I’m keeping the rest of your squad. You and you”—she pointed to the two biggest ones—“you’re my bodyguards till further notice. Stay with me and keep me alive. Don’t shoot any of our own people by mistake. Rest of you”—she was down to four—“I need you to go inside and move the bodies you find there out of that room, take them somewhere else and cover them with blankets or something. Part of the building used to be a dairy barn, maybe you can find a clean stall. Try to wipe the maps and charts clean enough to read. Be quick and let me know when you’re done.”

She stood silently with her guards, hearing the drumming and singing of the tribals, the screams and shouts of fighting, single shots everywhere, companies and platoons hustling past them, and then reassuring volleys of gunfire and shouted orders.

It was growing lighter, and she checked her watch. Twelve minutes had gone by since she’d burst out of the restroom. She would have thought it had been an hour. Jeff always said time in battle is different. Her eyes stung, from smoke or dust or something.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. JEWETTSPORT FORD, JUST UPSTREAM OF PROPHETSTOWN, ON THE WABASH RIVER. 6:55 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

Freddie Pranger was intent on getting across quickly and quietly, and almost missed the leg sticking out of the brush on the little island in the middle of the bridge. Bodies were hardly a novelty anymore, but this one looked fresh. Very carefully, he wrapped an arm around one girder of the bridge truss, placed his feet on an outside strut, lowered himself around the railing, and then dropped the last three feet to the ground.

The body groaned. Freddie drew his knife and, with his other hand, lifted the brushy branch. “Roger!”

The young man lay with a leg folded under him; clearly he’d fallen, jammed a foot in a crack in the rocks, and come down twisting. His pack was pinned beneath him, and his rifle and water bottle lay out of reach.

Roger must have been lying here for at least nine hours—more, if he’d fallen on his way out rather than on his way back. Pranger picked up the water first and said, “Anything hit you in the guts?”

“Just the leg.” The voice was barely a croak, but at least he could answer a question. Freddie held the bottle steady so Roger could drink, and then set about figuring out how to get him free. The shores and stream were swarming with tribals, but shadows were still dark under the bridge. They were probably invisible to the tribals, but he dared not strike a light for a better look.

More feeling around revealed that the foot was thoroughly wedged. There would be no pulling it out without moving the broken leg.

“The RRC’s first aid kit’s got a few morphine sulfate tabs. I’m giving you two, ’scuse my pushing’em into your mouth but we can’t waste’em. Now wiggle’em around to get’em on your tongue, and have some more water, and, down the hatch.”

Roger swallowed painfully. “They’re down.”

“Have the rest of the water, it’ll do you good and that morphine’s gonna need something to dissolve it. It’s more than enough to knock you out long enough for me to get your foot free and set and splint your leg. Ain’t gonna be any fun, so you’re skipping out till I’m done.”

“’Preciate it, really do, I really am… I’m going to…”

Freddie crept away; by the time he had found an old piece of driftwood one-by that seemed like suitable splint material, Roger was completely out.

Freddie’s inexpert hands found breaks in both bones in the lower leg, and the knee was at an odd angle, wobbled side to side, and seemed to be wearing its kneecap too low.

He tied Roger to one girder under the bridge by his hands, silently prayed that this didn’t dislocate his shoulders too, tied another loop around the unconscious man’s ankle (hope that’s not broken too or at least this doesn’t make it worse) and ran a double V of line to pull on it, a sort of caveman block and tackle. The ankle popped free on a hard tug; Freddie decided it felt like most other ankles he’d ever felt.

He re-rigged to tie Roger down across the chest and apply most of the force to pulling the leg straight by the ankle. He tugged and retied over and over until the bones moved easily under his hands, then tied off with a tight timber hitch and slid it a notch tighter.

Pressing things into what seemed like place, comparing it with the good leg, Freddie kept pushing, pulling, and feeling until he couldn’t feel any difference. He slowly released the tension, playing the rope out gradually, feeling to make sure nothing popped back out of place, and then tied the splint on with some of the bandaging rags from the kit.

Wish I thought old Hugh Glass couldn’t’ve done better, but I just bet when he did, it was better. And on his own leg, at that.

While Roger slept on, Freddie munched a biscuit, a wedge of cheese, and a cold chop, and considered what he might do. Just after eight, there was a flurry of activity downstream across the river; another big swarm of rafts and boats full of tribals was launching from the Prophetstown area, the swampy stretch below the Tippecanoe battlefield. Lying still in the shadows under the bridge, between the two piers, Freddie didn’t think there was much risk of being seen; the enemy had no reason to look upstream for anything, and they were pretty intent on getting all those boats and rafts into the water. He stayed alert, ready to cover Roger’s mouth if he woke, but otherwise silent.

Freddie’s best estimate was that during the whole launching, there seemed to be fifty boats, rafts, and canoes in sight downstream all the time. The average might have been fifteen tribals per boat or raft, since some of them seemed to be carrying supplies and gear more than people. Maybe half a mile of the river below their launching point was visible from where he was sitting, and they might be going at six miles an hour or so with all that rowing. Not long after nine, the last of them passed around the bend below.

At a guess, that worked out to between seven and ten thousand of them.

He’d heard no gunfire for hours; the army was beaten, or fleeing, or holed up.

About ten, Roger woke slowly, and when Freddie was sure it wouldn’t choke him, he gave him another drink. He remembered faintly from somewhere that morphine was dehydrating, and made sure he kept pouring water into the younger man.

Roger explained that he’d gone to take a look at the Daybreakers, per Larry Mensche’s orders, and been passed by the TexICs as they rode in. “Gorgeous sight that I’ll remember forever,” he said. “Like three hundred movie cowboys or Nashville stars, riding like maniacs.”

“C’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la guerre,” Freddie said.

“Uh, my language in college was Lisperesque-2021,” Roger said.

“What a French officer who saw the Charge of the Light Brigade said,” Freddie said. “French was the logical language for a frontier-history nut to study. Yeah, it would’ve been what, almost sunset? Must’ve been beautiful.”

“I was sneaking along on this bank—they crossed on the old I-65 bridge—and I saw them a couple more times, far away, still riding like hell on a broomstick. Then there was a buttload of shots and yelling and everything, from over around the old battlefield, and I came to this bridge. It’s kind of perfect because it’s so small half the maps don’t show it, and without lights it’s pretty dark, lots of good shadows to hide in in the moonlight.

“I made it across, went into that swampy area below the battlefield, and found so many Daybreaker patrols and scouts that I realized pretty fast I was gonna have to turn back. I’d heard screaming men and horses, gunshots, all that noise a battle makes, but it had died down to nothing by the time I crossed the bridge the first time; I figured the TexICs had probably ridden straight into a trap. Anyway, there was just too much traffic around in the dark, all Daybreakers, for me to stick around.

“So I started back with my information, taking it real slow and careful because the enemy were everywhere. I stayed in one ditch it seemed like forever, then there was more fighting.”

“President’s Own,” Freddie supplied. “They were supposed to take and hold it in the middle of the night.”

“Well, they were hosed pretty bad, Freddie, I don’t mean by Grayson or by Goncalves, our guys just didn’t know what was happening. But, jesus, dude, the situation. I estimated two thousand Daybreakers outside, and more than that in the fort itself.

“Anyway I snuck along my ditch to the northeast, ran up the embankment, and got onto the bridge. I was right about here when I saw boats coming, and since I was at this little island, I figured I’d just slip under the bridge and let them pass. Slip was the word; I fell and landed wrong, and that’s where you found me.”

“I would say it could happen to anybody,” Freddie said, “except for how much it scares me that that is true.”

“Well, the next thing that happened, while I was lying there not quite believing how bad hurt I was, the boats just kept coming, and they were landing all over Prophetstown, and I realized they were closing the trap. The noise got a lot wilder up there and then there was nothing. Then another big force came down the Wabash, I think twice as many as came out of the Tippecanoe, and sometime after that it was sunrise and you were here.”

“Yeah, and while you were out, the big force you saw came down the hill and launched; they’re all downstream, now, at least eighteen or twenty thousand of them. Grayson’s catching all hell—if he’s still alive to catch it.” Freddie sighed. “On the bright side, you look better.”

“I’m even hungry.”

“I’ve got some bread and cheese left, let’s try you on a little of that and see if you hang onto it.”

Roger seemed to have no problem with food, other than getting enough of it; when he had eaten, he said, “Freddie, my leg hurts but not too bad. Why don’t you tighten up your splint, and see if I can maybe move with a crutch or something?”

A little experimenting showed that Roger could hop with a driftwood board under his arm and his leg held mostly out in front of him, but climbing back to the bridge looked difficult even with Freddie’s help, and it didn’t seem likely he could travel either far or fast on his own.

“Don’t want to start moving till I know where we’re going,” Freddie said, “and I don’t. No idea where the war is now, and it can’t be going well. That black smoke coming up from Lafayette seems more like something that would be happening if they were winning than if we were.”

“Maybe you should leave me here for a while and take a look over toward Prophetstown, even see if you can get to the battlefield. There might be survivors we could link up with, and I’m fine with water and a rifle right in reach, and can move myself around a little if I need to change where I’m hiding or find another angle. You can leave me a couple hours.”

Freddie nodded. “Guess you’re right.” He made sure Roger was as comfortable as possible, and said, “Hey, thanks for not telling me to just abandon you here and go on without you.”

Roger snorted. “Thanks for not just deciding to, bro.”

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. RUINS OF LAFAYETTE. 9:00 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

Jenny thought, These people look sick and worried. Bet I do too. “All right,” she said, “my only authority for calling this meeting is that I was here and everyone else was dead. Anything I ordered you to do that was obviously wrong, I certainly hope you did something else instead. Who’s the senior officer here?”

Everyone looked nervously at the two surviving captains. Harris, his face still powder-stained and his shirt blood-spattered, said, “Probably me. I don’t want the job.”

“No one here does.” She remembered that back before, Harris had been a state legislator in Idaho, and had joined the National Guard so he could call himself a veteran if he ran for Congress. “But someone’s got to do it and your name’s at the top of the list.”

He rubbed his face. “I can put myself on the sick list and declare I’m not fit to command.”

“If you would do that,” she said, “I’m sure you’re not.” Wow, way to win him over Jenny, she thought, then decided, oh, what the hell, it’s true.

Podlewski, the other captain, said, “Ma’am, back before I was a township constable; I’ve never been—”

“I understand that. My previous job was political wife. But we are in the middle of a battle, and we owe it to the troops that trust us to—”

Something roared outside. Metal screamed against bricks.

“What the Jesus fucking hell was that?” Jenny said, shocked at how level her voice was. They all looked stunned, and she said, “Never mind. Back to your units, now. Hold the line or if it’s broken close it up and retake it. Send me a situation report as soon as you can. Now! Move!”

They ran out of the office, leaving her alone with her father, who looked at her with an expression of polite, puzzled horror. “You said…”

“If they are going to force me to be a soldier, Daddy, I am going to fucking talk like one. I’m just lucky I have the benefit of a modern college education so I already know how.” She took two steps toward her father, and looked around the room at the still blood-spattered maps and charts, where she had been marking known positions and recording that she was apparently out of contact with all the President’s Own Rangers, the TexICs, her scouts, and one whole battalion of the Missouri militia. “Daddy,” she said, “I am so far out of my place. But I haven’t given up, and those officers—”

“They were all the rotten branches, Jenny. Daybreak killed all the worthwhile senior officers. Daybreak knew. I don’t know the army, but I know people and I know administration. Daybreak drew a quality line through the organizational chart and cut off everyone above—”

A man burst in. She read his shirt and realized with relief that she had a real, not post-Daybreak militia, second lieutenant here. He started to salute, shook his head as if to clear the impulse, and said, “Ma’am, the Daybreakers have attacked our whole western line with what’s basically a one-shot musket. Piece of pipe with gunpowder at the closed end, jammed down with ball bearings or fishing weights. They light it with a fuse. It’s a shitty weapon but our men were used to those lame little bows and thrown rocks, and weren’t properly under cover. First volley carried off a lot of our people, lots of serious wounds, and while everyone was screaming and thrashing, the tribals charged. Luckily we had two backup companies in rear enfilade, where you put them, and they moved in, held off the human wave, and we’re okay, but we’re pretty bashed up. Same report applies all along the western side of camp. I sent runners all around to warn the other sides of the camp.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And forgive me, you’re Lieutenant—”

“Marprelate, ma’am, Calvin Marprelate, used to be of Tenth Mountain back before, spent most of my time after Daybreak as the TNG military liaison for Pale Bluff, long story short your husband assigned me for liaison to the Fourth Washington Militia. With your permission, no one else appears to be willing to do the job, so I’m assuming command.”

“You don’t need my permission and I’m delighted,” she said.

He nodded, and shouted, “Messenger!” Two quick sentences sent the messenger galloping off to bring in a platoon to guard headquarters. He turned back to Jenny and her father. “You two, and Chris Manckiewicz when they bring him in—”

“I’m here,” Chris said, bustling in, still tying back his shoulder-length hair and finger-combing his bushy beard. “I was able to pry open a dormer window on one of the livestock barns and get a view up the river. It’s solid boats and rafts as far as I can see. At least five, maybe ten times as many tribals as General Grayson expected. I take it you’re acting CO, Lieutenant Marprelate?”

“For want of anyone else. Did you get a look toward the stretch of road we’ve been using for an airfield?”

“Hiatt Drive. Yeah, it’s now way outside our lines, the eastern side of the fairgrounds was pretty well overrun before they stopped them at a line of barns, so you’ve got a big stretch of chain-link fence in the middle of the Daybreakers between you and the runway. Hiatt Drive is like everything else for half a mile around, packed with Daybreakers—”

Marprelate barked again. “Messenger! Word to all units not on the line: I need a platoon of volunteers to retake the landing field.”

The messenger saluted and ran out.

To Jenny, Chris, and the Reverend Whilmire, he said, “I’m going to lead that sortie personally. We can’t lose our advantage in having command of the air.”

“But we don’t have to have that landing field,” Chris pointed out, “she can fly out of Terre Haute for now, and heliograph to us—”

“That’ll be all. While I’m gone, reports will be coming in. Prepare me a set of options for a breakout and a counterattack, and a situation summary.” He strode decisively from the room.

Chris said, very quietly, “I don’t know whether I’m more afraid that he’s doing this because he didn’t listen to my report and he’s a fool, or because I’m a major newspaper publisher and he’s a show-off.”

“Quite a choice,” Jenny said. “Let’s get to work on that situation summary. If Marprelate comes back, he’ll want it, and if he doesn’t somebody will, even if it’s me again.”

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. TIPPECANOE BATTLE GROUND, WABASH. 11:00 AM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

Freddie Pranger had seen the pile of dead children in the McDonald’s by Deer Creek Run. He’d seen the dozen bodies hanging from the bridge by Pierce. He’d found the barely covered pile of newborns in the ravine below Castle Greenwood.

This wasn’t worse, objectively, he told himself. Just another bad thing as they tried to restore civilization.

But more of this pile were people he knew.

It looked like Goncalves and the President’s Own Rangers must have taken the visitor center and held it for a while. Dead Rangers lay by every window, hole, and door, some hacked by blades, a few with arrows protruding, some with big holes in their backs.

Freddie knelt, looked, turned the body over, and swore. No mistaking the small, almost round entry wound and the exit wound you could put a fist into; it had been a slug from a heavy firearm. Apparently the Daybreakers were willing to compromise their religious objections to Mister Gun.

Good sweet jesus, if the tribals surprised the army with guns—

Even if the army had more and better guns, that first shock after almost a year of never having to face anything worse than those lame-ass homemade wooden bows, and those silly little-David rock-and-slings, to be hit with musket volleys—just before the human waves hit—His heart felt cold and heavy. He would have to push Roger—

Again, he froze: there in the center of the improvised fort, a circle of bodies splayed outward to the compass points from the grim hedge of head-topped spears at the center. Walking forward, he recognized Goncalves and some others.

They leave us their dead because we want life to go on, so we have to bury or burn them. The tribals don’t want life to go on, so to them, usually these corpses are just a bioweapon against us, or a burden we have to bear. But these bodies meant… well, shit, I can’t leave them this way.

Pranger wasn’t normally a praying man; alone in the forest he often felt a presence in the loving silence, but seldom saw any reason to spoil that with yakking.

Nevertheless, when he gently lifted Goncalves’s head by the chin and occiput, letting the blood-matted gray beard stick to his palms like a rag from a butcher’s table, he said, “I’m sorry,” and when he set the head carefully beside the big man’s corpse, he murmured, “Be at peace” to Goncalves and added “Take care of him,” to the presence.

As he placed the last head by the last body, he said, “Help me get this right, Lord, they deserve—”

“Shit,” a voice said.

Freddie drew his hatchet and wheeled. No one. Nothing moved.

He turned slowly around, scanning methodically. Among one pile of bodies, an arm flopped away from a face. A Daybreaker? The face was tattooed in a domino mask joined to a spiderweb pattern—

But the torn, bloody shirt was fringed, with three stripes on the sleeve, and the shoulder patch was a star behind crossed lances: a TexIC. He knelt by the young man. “Scout Freddie Pranger, RRC, attached to Army of the Wabash. You look like you could use some help.”

“All I can get, Scout Pranger. I’m Dave McWaine, Sergeant, Texas Independent Cavalry.” Something about the tautness of McWaine’s brownish-bronze skin, or his innocent, stunned expression, implied he wasn’t more than twenty. His deep black hair was bound in a single blood-soaked braid. He rolled over, looking around. “Shit, not again. This can’t be happening twice.”

“Water?” Freddie asked, sticking to practicalities. “No abdominal wounds?”

“Yes water, no ab wounds, just the worst headache in the history of everything.”

Freddie gave the young man his bottle. “I just filled it at the pump, there’s plenty.” He let McWaine drink while he checked for broken bones and for wounds he might not be feeling yet.

Bad contusions, but no deep wounds. That gash across his scalp probably bled so bad they didn’t bother to make sure he was dead. With those dark eyes I can’t see his pupils well enough to check for a concussion.

“I gotta get back to camp sometime soon and I already have another wounded guy to take with me. Can you walk?”

The TexIC nodded. “I’m banged up, but not broke nowhere.”

“My other wounded man is a scout lying under a bridge with a broken leg a couple miles from here. Come with me, and tell me your story on the way.

“I don’t know if nobody gonna believe me.” The young man’s accent was strange, a hint of border-state south like Pranger’s own, but slightly flattened and guttural.

“Probably I will, if it’s true.”

“True as death, Mister Pranger. True as death.”

Freddie approved of the way Dave McWaine told his story while looking around constantly, never letting his voice rise in volume, pausing frequently for them both to listen. Before they reached the bridge, Freddie had heard it all.

I’m an enrolled Tonkawa; my mom made sure I’as enrolled. But she didn’t get along too well with her folks, and I didn’t exactly have a dad except biologically, so I didn’t grow up near any other Tonkawas, and the little bit that Mom remembered, she remembered all kinda-sorta and scrambled up. On my own later, I learned some of that tribal ways stuff off Goo-22 and Wikimondo on the Internet, but I didn’t always know what I’as reading.

Like, first time I got sent up to Corsicana, I had a guy do this tattoo on my face here. They said it was self-mutilating behavior and gave me another two months; I just thought I’as being traditional Tonkawa ’cause there was this thing on a web page about how they had lots of tattoos all over their upper body and face. I didn’t even think that the tattoo might be, you know, some certain exact thing, or that maybe somebody besides you decided what you should wear, or that maybe they didn’t all do that anymore. It was right there on the Internet, you know?

So I’as just back from my second stay at Corsicana, and busting my ass to finish a GED and get something else going because I’as through with the street kid crap and the stuck in a small town forever crap and the everybody knows you’re just a piece of crap crap and all the crap in general, and working for this guy Stan Krauss, a horse breeder, ’cause I loved horses, and Daybreak hit and Mister Krauss thought he was gonna be a big old rich guy, and I started working full time for him, ’cause I thought so, too, I mean, engines stop working, people’re gonna want horses, right?

So I’as doing okay, had a steady job, Krauss’s horse ranch was the most successful business in Grinder’s Hole, Texas, orders backed up five years in advance. There I was coming up in the world for the first time even if the world was going down, and then in the spring last year all these bush hippies started coming around by Mister Krauss’s place and giving us all this, like, threatening shit, like telling us we needed to free the horses for the wolves to eat, because horses were bred by people to make Mother Earth dirty. I think. Ain’t sure I ever got it straight, ’cause they shouted most of it, along with some threats. Well, but you know, that Mister Krauss, he was old school Texas-German, if you know the type, he just told’em to get the fuck off his land.

So one day I’as out chasing Redstone, who was the biggest pain in the ass you ever saw in a stallion and stallions are born to be pains in the ass, when I heard noise a long way off, and I came back and there was Mister Krauss and Mrs. Krauss and the other three guys that helped on the place, all dead in the yard, and the buildings burning, and the tribals that did it just a dust cloud going over the hill.

I got all the horses out of the barn—the Daybreakers were just gonna let’em burn alive—and I’as standing in that yard with the horses around me, and me crying like a little kid and talking to Krauss’s body like I was right out of my mind, and Redstone stuck his nose in my back, and he’s standing there like he’s saying “I’m sorry.”

So I found a saddle that’d fit him, and him and me got the other horses into a string, and we headed into Grinder’s Hole to get the town militia and some help. Got there, and… well, there wasn’t no help. Shit, there wasn’t no Grinder’s Hole. The tribals had left some bodies and some burning buildings and taken off north.

So I went south, ’cause I had an idea how to turn those horses into some wealth. The government in Austin was gonna be starting the Texas Independent Cavalry, which a lot of guys wanted to be in ’cause it was like a big deal, but it was bring your own horse, so I figured some guys that wanted to join would want to trade for a horse, and sure enough they did, and pretty soon I had me a big account in the Bank of Texas and the only horse I had left was Redstone, which I’as the only one he’d let ride him.

And I don’t know if I’as drunk or ’cause all us rich guys were doing it, but Redstone and me signed up, and damn if I wasn’t pretty good at being cavalry, made corporal before we even left Fort Norcross and sergeant by the time we’as at Pale Bluff.

So yesterday the general told us to ride hard and hit’em before the main force of tribals got there. But they got there before us, and unlike your usual Daybreaker hippie dumbshits, these ones had some tricks. Right alongside the other TexICs, we rode in from the creek side. Redstone jumped that breastwork like he had wings. I pulled out two pistols like Buffalo Fuckin’ Bill to get it started.

But there’as more of’em around me than I could count, mostly with spears, and one asshole with a two-handed ax brung down Redstone with one hard chop to the face, and the rest drug me off and was beating me, and that was the last I knew for a while.

So I woke up and I’as in a pile of tied up TexICs and they told us we better scream and holler when they put us up on the wall ’cause we’as gonna be human shields. So I made up my mind to keep my mouth shut, but it didn’t matter ’cause next thing I know Goncalves and his Rangers come busting into the building where they had us, and a couple of’em cut us loose and found us guns and knives to help out with, I thought us TexICs were hot shit, but the President’s Own Rangers’re something else, man, something else.

So it seemed like we’as in that building for a million years, we took charge after charge, and a few’d die, and then a few more, and finally one Daybreaker charge got inside. I shot till I had nothing to shoot, I remember running out of ammo, and then it was hatchet work, and then, boom, something on the back of my head, right where I wear my braid, which I think maybe saved my skull and my life.

And that’s me.

^{ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ABOVE LAFAYETTE, WABASH. 12:00 PM EASTERN TIME. TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2026.}

Nancy Teirson saw her landing field was overrun with Daybreakers and did not begin a descent. She flew on over the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds, observing guns flaring in the thin open space between the thick double line of people encircling what had been about a third of the army’s encampment. Obviously there was a lot of shit on what remained of the fan.

Staying high, she put the Acro Sport into a several-mile-wide counterclockwise circle to observe, and to give General Grayson a chance to heliograph to her. There was a garrison, a fuel depot, and a radio transmitter back at Terre Haute; she could report the bad news from there. Meanwhile, she needed to make sure she saw as much of it as she could.

The hasty tribal fortifications at the Tippecanoe battlefield were empty, but scattered bodies were everywhere.

She climbed up into the fierce cold, almost to the Acro Sport’s 18,000-foot ceiling, for a better look from a distance. No more big tribal forces moving along the Tippecanoe River, so obviously they had arrived. Circling back over the main battle at the fairgrounds, she estimated 23,000 tribals by a radial count and 27,500 by an area count.

The forces she had been tracking before had totaled no more than 8,000. Had all these others come down the Wabash?

Descending to a much warmer 6,000 feet over the camp, she looked for interruptions in the Daybreaker lines, but found none: the army was surrounded.

As she flew a slow circuit, looking for anything unusual or any clue she could take back with her, a heliograph flashed below:

They’re going to try to break out in 9 minutes, they expect to have the runway clear in 15, and they want me to land in 30? Grayson must have—no. Not Grayson. He’d never give an order that dumb. He’s dead or unconscious, and some real idiot is in command down there.

She clamped the stick between her knees, got the sun on the positioning spot, sighted the headquarters signal tower down the scope of her own heliograph, and sent,

Surely they’d understand do not sortie, whether or not they grasped the Q codes for I will circle three times and I will relay reconnaissance information before returning to Terre Haute.

They flashed back

which meant only “signal received.”

Well, whatever they do, I’m not landing here. One good look and back to Terre Haute. She moved the stick gently forward, slowly descending for a last pass across the fairgrounds. On the western side of the fairgrounds, she saw flashes and puffs of smoke from both sides of the line.

Tribals using guns.

Has to be the Castle Earthstone heretics, which means—what’s that?

She turned sharply to the east, flying straight across the camp, toward the strange object on the other side, near where her landing field had been. The thing was perhaps twenty feet across, like a giant quiver of arrows—no, an array of spears or harpoons—rotating and tilting toward her—

She hauled back and to the right on the stick and opened the throttle wide, avoiding flying over it, trying to climb away. A blue-black cloud appeared where the spear-things had been. She kept climbing, wishing the Acro Sport had a lot more engine.

Multiple thudding booms sounded behind her, audible even over the roaring engine. For an instant, she could hope she had been out of range.

The plane jerked and bucked. With a bang, her prop blades flew up and away, carrying off a piece of the upper wing; she leaned forward to see a long piece of wire wrapped around the shaft, one of those spears dangling from it.

Her leg felt funny, but the engine was shrieking with no load to balance it, so she first unlocked the throttle cutoff and slapped it in. In the abrupt silence she looked around, trying to put the plane into as long a glide as she could, hoping to make it back into the besieged army at the fairgrounds. She couldn’t seem to work the rudder, and as she gently eased the stick back, instead of leveling off, the plane pulled hard right.

A strange ripping noise made her look; a spear, stuck through both right wings, was pulling loose in the wind, taking fabric, struts, and wires with it, leaving big flapping shreds. Her right side now had far more drag than lift. She compensated with the stick as well as she could, but the rudder pedals—

Something hurt. She looked down. A spear was sticking out of the cockpit floor and into her left calf muscle.

The shaft must be trailing down between the landing gear.

A crash was probably more immediately dangerous than blood loss. Nancy pushed on the barbed head, then pulled on the shaft, trying to back it out of her calf. With the torn wing it was already a hard fight to keep the Acro Sport in a straight glide toward the fairgrounds. It was trying so hard to tumble and dive. One hand on the stick and the other pawing at the spearhead, she plunged into a rising cloud of rocks and arrows.

She was still holding it mostly level when, seventy yards short of the fairground fence, the spear butt hit dirt. The spear ripped through her calf muscle, freeing her in a rush of blood. Screaming, she hauled back on the stick, willing the tail wheel to touch first. For a half second it felt almost like merely her hardest landing ever.

But the tail did not come down. The saggy, deflated tires grabbed pavement. Nancy jammed her face between her knees, hands clutching her seat belt.

With a sound like dry sticks crushed in a garbage truck, the Acro Sport flipped over its nose, landing on its upper wing and rudder, crushing and dragging them against the fuselage. When the plane stopped sliding, she was hanging from the belt by her waist. She poked her head downward into the light.

Through a drizzle of spattering blood, she peered between the cockpit edge and the crushed upper wing. Her seat belt buckle was jammed. She fumbled for her knife, concentrating on getting out of the plane.

She found the hilt and undid the snap on the sheath just as she smelled the biodiesel, silently praying not like this not like this anything but this. She was sawing on the belt when, through the narrow aperture, she saw a blazing torch laid onto the fuel-drenched fabric of the upper wing.

She sawed as hard as she could, crying please not like this as she did, but the belt did not give way before the whole Acro Sport flashed over into a blazing roar.