"Yeah, I've been worrying about that. When I was up there yesterday I didn't see signs that anybody but me had been there, but we can't be lucky forever. I figure those guns are worth a fortune these days, and we sure as h.e.l.l don't want any of them shooting back at us."

"You said you've got, what, sixty rifles, plus how much ammo? We could round up some pack horses, I guess, or try to get your jeep through..." He trailed off.

"You guys got the kids doing basic? How about a nice Recon run?" That was a long trip in full packs. Army recruits have hated them since the dawn of time.

Frank's face lit up. "I like it! We can get sixty rifles in one trip."

"Uh, I counted," Santee said, a little sheepishly. "It's more like eighty. Plus some pistols."

"Okay, two Recon runs. We can send some armed scouts with them for protection."

"Uh..."

"Three?"

"Four. Maybe five. Bullets are heavy." Santee shrugged.

"You're going to be 'That b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the hill' to those boys." Frank grinned.

"Won't be the first time privates have cussed me. Do 'em some good, in the end."

"If it's any compensation, remember that Mike says you're allowed to teach them to swear."

"Go up and down that f.u.c.king hill enough, I do believe they'll learn all by their lonesome."

"Yes ma'am, I'm sure you should keep your shotgun. You wouldn't want some mo-, uh, evil person to get past our sentries and into your house without some way of fu-, uh, sending him to meet his maker. Are you sure you know how to use it?"

"Son, I was shootin' pheasants when you were in diapers, and you ain't a young man. Don't you worry about me none. But my husband's rifles you're welcome to; we lost him back in '93. I'm happy to help out the country."

Eddie spoke up. "Do you have plenty of sh.e.l.ls for the shotgun? Sixteen-gauge is a bit out of style, but I'm sure I can round up some more in town."

She pointed to the closet. "Twelve boxes should be more than enough, plenty of buckshot and slugs, too. Now you get along, take those back to the army, then go visit the Bradleys next door. Owen used to brag over his hunting rifle something fierce, and Grace won't know what to do with it."

Santee practically bowed his way out of the house, followed by Eddie. "Yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

As the door closed, Santee wiped his brow, though it wasn't a warm day. This was as hard a job as he'd had in twenty years. Talk sweet and mind your tongue around the ladies-enough to drive a f.u.c.king preacher to swearing!

"That went well." Eddie said. "She's a little oldfashioned, isn't she?"

"Yeah. Nice, though. Let's hope they're all that easy." They carried the rifles back to Mrs. Tippett's front room (now an arms depot) and planned their next sortie.

Santee said stiffly, "Well, okay, Mr. Jones. We're only supposed to pick up what guns there are to spare."

"Fine. I got none to spare." Bobby Jones was a loud, fat, redneck-looking man in a dirty T-shirt who (according to Eddie's friend Jeff) worked as a mechanic and handyman and was the person to call if you wanted it cheap and didn't care if it was done right.

Eddie was absolutely sure that Jones was lying. "Okay," he said, turning as if to leave. "Say, when did you shoot that deer? Nice rack on him." He pointed to the stuffed head on the wall.

Thus primed, Jones went into a long, boring description of the hunt. "...Anyways, Coop and me and Doug went there the year before, scouting around for sign..."

Santee looked impatient, but Eddie listened attentively. Once, when Jones was looking away, he signaled Santee to stay quiet.

"... Anyways, I finally got him down to the car and got old d.i.c.key Estes to stuff him for me."

Eddie nodded. "Great. Thanks. Well, we gotta go now..."

Santee and Eddie stepped outside, and as Jones stood in the doorway, Eddie turned and said to him, "I think we'll go talk to Coop and Doug next. Is d.i.c.key Estes still around?"

Jones suddenly stopped as he was closing the door on the Chief Weapons Scrounger and his young a.s.sistant. He realized what Eddie had done and tried to think of a way around it. Mild panic washed over his face as he looked at Eddie.

Eddie carefully kept his face blank, showing nothing that could directly challenge the large man. Jones' hunting buddies would surely tell them about the guy's guns-and Eddie was sure he had several to spare. That's why he'd put up with the long story, of course. Now that the trap was sprung, Jones could only admit he had some rifles to donate, or be disrespected as a h.o.a.rder by his friends.

Jones looked at Eddie, then slumped his shoulders. "Wait a minute," was all he said as he went.

Ten minutes later Santee and his a.s.sistant were struggling back to Mrs. Tippett's with eight rifles and a.s.sorted ammo. "Slick, Eddie! Good job. I didn't see how you could really be interested in that stupid long-winded story of his... We've got to get a wagon or something!" He'd almost dropped a box of sh.e.l.ls and had to reposition his load. "So, what made you think of that?"

Eddie grinned bashfully "I learned it playing Dungeons and Dragons. We had a similar problem back in Bloomtree, but it was with one of the Elven blacksmiths. Worked out about the same, except for the cursed gauntlets we got stuck with."

Santee chuckled. "Well, we better check these rifles. I bet some of them don't work. From the look of that guy's house he knows nothing about cleaning."

"So we have a total mishmash." Santee had just handed his written report to Mike Stearns and Frank Jackson, who were standing in Mrs. Tippett's crowded front room among piles of firearms and ammo. "A bunch of deer rifles in, by my count, fifteen different civilian calibers, and no more than a few hundred rounds of ammo for most of them. A bunch of foreign military rifles, mostly German 8mm. The thing we have the most loaded ammo for is the SKS-everyone who bought a rifle bought a case or two when it was cheap, but we only have a half dozen of the rifles and they're under-powered for long-range shooting. And that ammo isn't reloadable; it's mostly Chinese military surplus c.r.a.p from the '90s and the cases are steel, not bra.s.s. So when that ammo's gone, the d.a.m.n rifles are useless."

"Shotguns?" asked Mike.

"Those we have, mostly pumps. And three shotgun sh.e.l.l reloading machines." Santee liked how Mike didn't ask stupid questions like "Are you sure?" or "Where did you look?" Let the pros do their job and get out of the way. "The military calibers you asked me to look for, we have more of those than I thought. Mostly hunting rifles, .30-06 and .308. Also some .223 for the mouse guns."

Frank murmured "Civilian M-16" to Mike, who nodded.

Santee continued. "Problem with the .223 is it's a wimpy caliber, made to wound instead of kill, and we've only got a few of the rifles. Some miner got a couple of cases of .308 for his M-14, but he'd loaned the rifle to his brother in Pennsylvania, so we have an extra twenty-four hundred rounds for, well, anything that takes .308." Santee didn't know about Frank's M-60 machine gun, possession of which was a felony (or would be in a few hundred years), but he suspected it from hints Frank had dropped. He'd let Frank handle that his own way.

"A bunch of .22 rimfire-rifles, pistols, and ammo. Maybe thirty thousand rounds. Still a drop in the bucket, and .22s won't punch through any armor-good for small game, though. And then there's one real oddball..."

He paused, and Mike and Frank looked at him expectantly. "You know that big, huge, ugly house those rich a.s.sholes own, out off the highway?" They nodded; the owners lived in Washington D.C. and had only visited occasionally. The house was scheduled to become public property when they had the time.

"Well, I had a hunch, and I got Eddie to sneak in through an upstairs window. They must have been planning one h.e.l.l of a safari. I found this big motherf.u.c.ker there." He hauled out a gigantic bolt-action rifle, inlaid with gold leaf, with fancy hunting scenes engraved in the metal. "It's in .577 T-Rex, which is another way of saying 'You didn't need that shoulder.' It throws almost two ounces of bullet real fast. It's meant to stop charging elephants. This sucker probably cost him twenty thousand bucks. He had over a hundred rounds of ammo, too. What the h.e.l.l he expected to shoot in West Virginia is anyone's guess."

They looked over the rifle and its exquisite workmanship. Frank said, "Dude must have had a small peter," which drew smiles from Mike and Santee.

"I don't suppose we'll have much use for it," Santee said, shaking his head, "but it sure is something to behold."

They discussed which guns to a.s.sign to various groups in the army and which to keep in reserve. It wasn't much of a discussion because there weren't all that many guns and most of their army was still unorganized and untrained.

Finally, Santee summed up. "Bottom line, here's what we can do. We can shoot up all our ammo. We can also reload for most of the center-fire calibers we have. Only enough powder for twenty or thirty thousand rounds of rifle, and maybe that much pistol. Sounds like a lot, but you'll have a lot of shooters, and you can only do so much with dry-fire practice. Then we go to the local black powder, if we can get it." Frank and Mike nodded, they had thought of that themselves. "We lucked out with primers, I found a couple of cases of old ones in the back room at the hardware store, and they store pretty well. There are about fifty thousand there, and lots more in bas.e.m.e.nts and workshops all around town. A bunch of folks around here reload; I'm trying to get all the spare equipment brought together so we can set up a reloading workshop. Bullets we can make from lead if we have to. But once those primers run out, that's it. Flintlocks, if we live that long." He looked disgusted. "I played with flintlocks once. They fired about eight, maybe nine times out of ten. Not good enough. Not f.u.c.king good enough."

The others nodded soberly. He knew his report wasn't too encouraging, but they'd have to make do. The alternative... well, there was none.

July 5, 1631

Eddie Cantrell was in the reloading shed, carefully pouring powder into bra.s.s rifle cases. It was a tedious, fussy job. Santee had been with him most of the afternoon but had gone outside to talk to Mike Stearns and Frank Jackson. The three were now standing in the shade outside the window, talking loudly.

Santee was hung over, like the rest of the city, but was nonetheless close to yelling. "No f.u.c.king way. Uh-uh. Not me, Frank, not me. I'd shoot one of the stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, and then where would we be?"