To turn back would be heartbreaking. Perhaps prudent, but heartbreaking. They had gotten through, thus far, without a major injury. It had nothing to do with prudence but with pride.
The other masters communicated without words the feeling that Hank Skelley could never make the high climb.
“Form up the column. We will continue down the canyon to the rear of Hudson Ranch. Double file, when possible, and tell the lads, it’s only a short way now.”
From locking fear to a mad euphoria, Wreck Hudson seemed to float over a great battlefield with mighty legions at his fingertips and an impenetrable defense ... as he transformed himself into a George S. Patton.
“Here they come,” Wreck whispered. He contacted his ring of machine gun, artillery, and mortar posts.
“Christ, it looks like a division of them down there,” Floyd said.
“We take no prisoners,” Wreck replied.
On they came, an ant line trudging out of Bloody Gulch toward White Wolf.
“I don’t see no weapons,” Floyd reported.
“They’ve got their machine pistols in their backpacks.”
“Looks like some of them are wearing short pants. Hey, looks like Boy Scout uniforms.”
“It’s a disguise,” Wreck growled. “They’re either Marines or Rangers.”
Now into the steep and narrow defile. Wreck looked down on the entire double line. He rolled his crazed eyes—he had them bagged in a deep well. “I’ve got less than twenty men .. . there were fifty last night at White Wolf! Where the fuck is my fucking brigade!”
“They shagged ass out of here.”
Wreck emitted his animal howl, fell to his knees, and held his face in his hands. Two patriots helped him to his feet. They were coming close, down there.
“Fire!”
Machine-gun fire crackled into the narrow rift, ricocheting off the walls like tennis balls. Some of the invaders went down!
Now they’ll know about Wreck Hudson! Glory! God! Glory! Jew plot foiled. Look at them fall! Fire! Fire! Fire!
The echoes of the bullets were as loud as the bullets, a hailstorm from four machine guns .. . mortars swished down and flamed and the earth bounced and heaved .. . now cannon fire far down range to blow the walls in and seal the canyon from retreat.
This is war! This is fucking war, man! I’ll get my Congressional Medal now!
The racket was so immense, it seemed to be a kind of rumbling that must have happened at the birth of the planet. A burst of small rocks spewed into the defile as machine gun bullets loosened them. Now the mortars fired into the narrowest part of the canyon, and down came boulders from basketball size to Greyhound size.
“Surprised you fuck heads Look at them running around and screaming!”
A huge slab skidded down, bounced off the cliff wall and behind; rocks poured down like a waterfall.
The Eagle Scouts were trapped and machine-gunned and a blizzard of rocks poured down on them and a dozen avalanches ran amok .. . . higher and higher the debris piled on the canyon floor, twenty, thirty feet... far over any scout.
Waves of concussion stirred up with angry dust and dislodged thousands more tons of rock. The waves careened through holes and fissures .. . . and found the cave with eight hundred tons of dynamite.
The mining operation was lifted from the ground and hurled over space.
Now a torrential rock fall as the canyon gave up great hunks.
The ranch house was eviscerated.
The last of the screams came from the patriots as their horseshoe of gun emplacements simply skidded off its moorings and plunged down.
Now the artillery shells and missiles and ammunition in the storage cave belched thunder after thunder after thunder.
Now death .. . now death .. .
NAVAL AIR STATION-SOUTH WEYMOUTH
AT THE SAME TIME
Air Force One moved to South Weymouth so that its departure would not gum up the air traffic around Boston and Providence.
President Thornton Tomtree boarded and went directly up to his office to put final touches on his Labor Day speech to the Eagle Scouts.
Darnell Jefferson oversaw the placement of personnel and that all systems were functioning. Working in a tighter proximity than the White House, the people aboard seemed doubly busy. Beyond Air Force One and two thousand feet lower, a long white plume trailed from the press plane.
Chief of the Secret Service presidential detail, Rocco Lapides, opened the door of his outer station to allow Darnell Jefferson in. Darnell was extremely wobbly, Lapides noted, as he knocked on the President’s door.
“Lapides, don’t answer the door until I tell you. We have to keep the lid on some news for ten or twenty minutes,” Darnell rasped.
No inquiries, ears, eyes, and mouth covered, the Secret Service man took his instructions.
“Mr. President,” Darnell said, addressing Thornton formally, as he always did in the presence of a third party.
“Everything in order?” Thornton asked.
“Not exactly.”
“You look horrible. What did you do? Tie one on last night?”
“We have received confirmed reports of a cataclysmic event. One of the columns of Eagle Scouts moved up a canyon, and the canyon walls collapsed on them.”
“Jesus! How long ago?”
“Maybe forty minutes. The Navajo police say it struck like a nuclear bomb. They flew a chopper to it, but there was such a cloud of dust over the area, they were prevented from taking a close-down look.”
“Oh, my God!” Lapides said, breaking his vow of silence.
“Just how many of these scouts were involved?”
“We don’t know, sir. We’re trying to glean a number. So far the news is frozen, except for a Four Corners emergency network in to us.
Mendenhall and I set up a communications system. The press plane
smells something—“
“They always smell something!”
“Mendenhall is holding them off. As soon as we have a hint of any casualties, you should have a tactic for announcing it to the people.”
Tomtree tried to screw down his focus to laser sharpness, winging through a dozen possible scenarios to hold the information from pouring over the floodgates. Thank God it was an accident! Tomtree immediately thought of his personal position in all of this. In a week he was to announce he was running for reelection in 2008 in order to short-circuit any overly ambitious Republicans from the Baptist crowd.
Mendenhall, who could perspire on an iceberg, was drenched as he came in.
“CIA satellite confirmation,” he rasped. “The canyon walls collapsed along a two-mile stretch. The path is under millions of tons of fallen rock.”
They all feared the next question:
“How many scouts were in the canyon?”
*
“We aren’t sure, Mr. President. There were three columns converging on Mexican Hat for a total of fifteen-sixteen hundred Eagle Scouts.”
“Well, goddammit, divide fifteen hundred by four. That’s four hundred in that column. That doesn’t mean, by any stretch of the imagination, they’ve all been hurt. In any event, it was a natural disaster. I should be able to rally a great deal of sympathy.”
Good Lord, Darnell thought, he’s acting like divine providence was taking him to the Four Corners. Maybe he could make his presidential reelection announcement right after they reached Four Corners.
Darnell Jefferson had all but collapsed in his armchair. The President and Mendenhall turned Air Force One into a flying White House, sizzling out instructions to the armed forces and connected agencies. . Information went in and out from a dribble to a rush .. .
“Christ, Mr. President. The Internet is running pictures of the canyons near Hovenweep National Monument, Utah. National Geographic is leading the charge.”
“Mr. President,” Darnell said hoarsely, “you’ve got to talk to the press plane.”
“Mr. President, confirmation from the scouts’ su
pply truck drivers that plans were changed in the morning and the column entered Six Shooter Canyon!”
“How many?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“Mr. President, Boy Scout Headquarters confirms the column entered Six Shooter Canyon with four hundred scouts and masters. They are from thirty-seven states.”
“Sir, we are hooked up to the press plane.”
“This is Thornton Tomtree. An avalanche of unknown origin apparently
took place in one of the canyons near the Hovenweep National Monument
in Utah. It appears that a number of Eagle Scouts hiking to their
jamboree at Mexican *
Hat might have been trapped. Air Force One is now en route to Albuquerque, where I was to give a Labor Day address. I ask our beloved nation to join hands and pray.”
The emergency team of White House Chief of Staff Tony Rizzoli, Darnell Jefferson, Mendenhall, and political strategist Turnquist had free access to the President. . Get a list of names of the people in that column .. . . The President needs a legal staffer up here to give us a picture of possible government responsibility .. . . Also send up Jacob Turnquist, the political spin meister, to set up damage control and estimate political fallout. Better to announce for reelection now as a calming gesture to the public, or better to announce after the first of the year? .. . . “We can’t say until we have all the facts.”
Admiral Wall, the President’s personal physician, checked blood pressure and pulse rate. “High, but okay.”
“Where in the hell is the vice president?”
Mendenhall eased into the crowding room. He leaned over and whispered in Tomtree’s ear.
“I’m going to ask everyone to clear out for a few minutes except the emergency team. I don’t want to be called until I give you orders. So?”
When the door closed Mendenhall’s expressive face showed terror.
“I just spoke to the Navajo chief of police by cellular. He rounded up a half dozen helicopters and landed at a place called Bloody Gulch inside the canyon. A party of ten pressed down Six Shooter .. . and they ran into a fifty-foot-high wall of fallen rock.
“They climbed for a better view and saw no signs of life. Further here, apparently hundreds of people in the region heard voluminous gunfire around zero seven three zero this morning.”
“Are you saying,” Darnell said, “that the explosion was set off?”
“According to the Navajo police, the adjoining property, a White Wolf Ranch, was headquarters for a Four Corners militia group.”
Admiral Wall gave the President another blood-pressure check, quickly prepared a syringe, and asked the President to lower his pants so the shot could go into his butt.
“Which camera crew is aboard?”
“CBS from the pool.”
“Have them wait in the hall. I’ll be making a statement in ten minutes.”
“Latest report, Mr. President: Navajo police report is confirmed. It is possible, even probable, that no one in the canyon escaped alive.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Larry Merton aboard Helicopter One, KTM,
Salt Lake City. The clouds of dust over Six Shooter Canyon seem locked
in. In a matter of moments medical teams and mountain rescue will try
to enter the canyon. There have been no signs of life. The canyon
continues to rumble and slide. We are going to try to fly under. Oh,
my God! It is a catastrophe down there. All buildings at the site of
the ranch house and mine have been eviscerated—“
“We interrupt to switch you to Air Force One, en route to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to bring you the President of the United States.”
“My fellow Americans, a great tragedy has befallen our nation. A column of approximately four hundred Eagle Scouts and their scout masters from over thirty states were hiking to a jamboree at Lake Powell. As they passed through a deep ravine known as Six Shooter Canyon, the walls imploded on them.
First reports tell us that there appear to be no survivors. I am sorry beyond measure to have to report to you that we believe it was not an accident, but a deliberate attack by a Hudson Mining and Cattle Company. Information on this may be scarce because all signs of life and property at the ranch were destroyed as well. We, our nation and its people, have entered a terrible period of grief and of outrage. We must rise above our grief and our outrage to be able to make clear decisions.
“I have ordered the largest and most thorough investigation in history to commence forthwith and to issue a preliminary public report within a matter of weeks.
“America is a great and strong nation, the longest existing democracy, and such greatness was not gained without constant challenge and bloodshed and sacrifice.
“Our enemies will play on this tragedy to try to prove the fall of American greatness. Yet we have prevailed where others have fallen into the mists of time, and we shall prevail again.
“As your president, I beg you to open your arms to the families of those young men who have been killed. They must feel the strength and the prayers and the sharing of their sorrow.
“How could such an event happen? Well, we must look back, perhaps generations, to find the link. I believe the link will take us back to our very roots.
“Yet this catastrophe occurred during my watch, and I must bear the responsibility.
“Lord, let a light stream out of this darkness and tell us that these brave young men will light the way to our future.”
“Henrietta Joslin, CNN, Denver. The government has set up the following toll-free numbers for families of the expected casualties. All airlines flying into Albuquerque and Santa Fe are issuing complimentary tickets to the families. Shuttle service will be in effect by tomorrow morning to connect from Denver and Salt Lake City. Lodging in the Four Corners will be provided by the hotels and motels in the area.”
The President was finally able to carve out time for himself and Darnell. Darnell had suddenly become ancient-looking, going through waves of being stunned over and over. What in the name of God am I doing here?
Thornton Tomtree, sitting over there, having given his moment of grief, was torturously trying to think how to wiggle his way out of the catastrophe.
There had to be finger pointing. Already fingers were being loosened by the media, and Democrats were giving middle finger salutes.
The gun issue was always kept low-key, but T3’s laissez-faire attitude on guns and militias was a matter of record. Darnell had argued the gun-control position regularly with the President in his first two and a half years.
“You can’t stop bootleggers, you can’t stop drug dealers,” Tomtree had
answered. “What the hell makes you think we can stop gun running
“They are evils,” Darnell had argued. “Because you see an evil, an overwhelming evil, and say, ‘nothing we can do about it, old chap’ and let it run wild—this is not the behavior of a civilized people. Evil must be fought at every level.”
“So, what are we to do, Darnell, go holy on this subject and watch China or the damned French take over our arms commerce?”
“But we are the United States of America!”
“Exactly my point,” Thornton had responded. “I couldn’t even move the Congress .. . even if I had a notion to. So, looking at the reality of the situation, we must then look at the bottom line.”
Darnell was exasperated. He knew that somewhere along the road with Thornton, a bridge would be down. Time and again during their corporate years, Darnell verged on leaving in anger. Always, the lure of T3 pulled him back into the cycle. Thornton was a genius, a great man, and he, Darnell, would be sackcloth and ashes without him.
Thornton grasped the enormity of the tragedy and sensed he was going to have the most intense scrutiny in history. Did Darnell want to try to save this man?
“We need a plan, we need a plan,” Tomtree said.
Darnell didn’t answer. Thornton looked at him suspic
iously. “Are
you—“
“I don’t know!” Darnell answered.
“We must be careful,” Thornton said, “we are on thin ice.”
“Tell me about it,” Darnell said.
“We need a plan.”
Mendenhall came in with several sheets of paper. Tomtree winced that he was not wearing a jacket but perspiring like a man on a chain gang.
“Mr. President, here it is! Spot polls, raw data.”
“Who got it so fast?” Darnell asked.
“Warren Crowder. Ten minutes after the explosion he had reporters
polling gatherings like bus stops and bowling alleys and malls and
firing the information back to Crowder—Washington—“
“That means that bitch, Greer Little Crowder,” the President snapped.
“.. . The printout isn’t bad, sir,” Mendenhall said. “Let’s see:
Gravity of the event—serious 97 percent, don’t know 2 percent. Blame
current lack of gun and militia laws—don’t know 62 percent, yes 33
percent, no 7 percent. Believe President shares responsibility—yes 30
percent, no 30 percent. Believe Congress shares responsibility—yes 50
percent, no 37 percent, don’t know .. . et cetera. White males over
forty—“
“Hold the phone,” Darnell Jefferson said. “Thanks, Mendenhall, just leave the rest of the data here.”
“Here is the way we go, Thornton. We make a two-pronged attack. Attack
number one is an attitude toward the Congress. We admit we put these
issues on the back burner because the Congress was not going to be
moved on them, including dozens of Democrats. That, if done subtly,
opens the Congress to a populist outburst. Congress will know what to
do when they get the heat—“
“We will offend our own power base, Darnell. You’ve got to remember we assumed majority with a fragile coalition.”