The Last Mission Of The Seventh Cavalry. Charley Brindley

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СКАЧАТЬ we could see the glow of city lights. Maybe Marseilles or Cannes.”

      “Could be, I guess.”

      “If we can spot a big city, we’ll go that way until we get out of this crazy place.”

      Chapter Twelve

      Autumn walked through the woods just below the Seventh’s camp, looking for firewood. It was a little past sunset, but still twilight.

      “You need help, Apache?”

      Autumn jerked around at the sound of the man’s voice, almost dumping her armload of wood. “Lojab, can’t you whistle or something when you’re sneaking up on a woman?”

      “I ain’t sneaking, I just wanted to help.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

      Autumn narrowed her eyes on his hand. “I know what you want.” She shoved away his hand.

      “Well, good. That’s saves a lot of small talk.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      “You’re not like the others, are you?”

      “Other what?” She knelt to pick up a dead branch and added it to her armload of wood.

      “The other women. They don’t understand what I need.”

      “Oh, I think they understand you pretty well.” She turned to go back toward the camp.

      He grabbed her arm. “Wait a minute. You don’t have to be in such a hurry.”

      “Get away from me.” She jerked her arm from his grip, dumping her armload of wood. “You’re breathing my air.”

      “You fucking bitch.”

      “Yes, I am.” She knelt to pick up her wood. “And if you touch me again, I’ll kick the shit out of you.”

      He mumbled something as she left him standing there.

      Back at the camp, Autumn dropped her wood on the fire, sending up a cloud of smoke and embers.

      “Is that big enough for you, Sparks?”

      Sparks glanced at the fire. “Yeah.” He looked at Autumn, with her feet spread apart and hands on her hips. She wore an expression that could scare off a Buffalo Dog. “Um, yeah, that’s really nice. You’re probably the best wood gatherer in the Seventh Cavalry.” He tried to look apologetic.

      Sarge sat on a log nearby, holding a tin cup of coffee. He gave Autumn a look, like, ‘What the hell’s eating you?’

      Autumn relaxed and grinned. “Sorry, Sparks.” She walked around the fire toward him. “I just had a cute little discussion with your charming pal, Blow Job.”

      “My pal?” Sparks opened the Dragonfly’s cover to insert a fresh battery. “Since when is he my pal?” He set the aircraft on the grass.

      “Well, someone has to be his friend.” She took Sarge’s cup and sipped the coffee.

      “I wish him luck in that fantasy,” Sparks said. “All right, kids, here we go.”

      A soft whirl came from the wings of the little drone, then it lifted off, going straight up.

      “Take her slow, Sparks,” Sarge said as he picked up the iPad to watch the screen.

      “Right.”

      Sarge held the iPad so Sparks could see it as he worked the controls. The campfire grew smaller on the display as the Dragonfly lifted higher and higher.

      “Two thousand feet,” Sparks said. “I’ll pan around, then center back on the fire.”

      They saw nothing but total darkness, horizon to horizon.

      “Take her up to three thousand,” Sarge said.

      Kawalski and the others came to stand behind Sarge, watching the iPad.

      “Look there,” Autumn said, “to the northeast.”

      A slight glow arched above the trees.

      “Zoom in, Sparks.”

      “Right.”

      “Damn,” Sarge said. “Those are campfires.”

      Lojab came in from the woods. He glared at Autumn, then folded his arms and watched the display on the iPad.

      “It’s the Vocontii village,” Autumn said.

      “Yeah,” Sarge said. “And it’s a lot bigger than we thought.”

      “There must be hundreds of fires,” Autumn said.

      “Go up to five thousand,” Sarge said.

      Sparks reduced the zoom and centered on their fire again. He then flew up to five thousand feet. The display of the campfire moved off the screen.

      “What happened?” Sarge asked. “We lost the fire.”

      “Wind.” Sparks rotated the controls. “I need to see the fire to find her.”

      “What if you can’t locate the fire?”

      “I can hit the ‘home’ button, and it’ll fly back here. But it might hit the trees when it comes down and tear itself apart.” He panned the camera left to right. “Ah, we’re almost to the Vocontii camp.” He watched the display as the Dragonfly drifted toward the fires of the Vocontii. “So, the wind is coming from the southwest.” He turned into the wind and flew forward. “Here we are.” Their campfire came up on the screen. “Now that I know the wind direction, I can hold our position.”

      “Wow,” Kawalski said as Sparks panned around the horizon. “It’s as dark as midnight in a coalmine.”

      “Damn,” Sarge said. “I thought sure we’d see a big city. How far away is the horizon at this height?”

      “About eighty miles,” Sparks said.

      “So, if there was a big city out there,” Autumn said, “even two hundred miles away, we would see the glow of the lights.”

      “I think so,” Sarge said. “All right, Sparks, bring her down. This sinkhole is a lot bigger than I thought.”

      “If we’re in a sinkhole,” Lojab said, “we can’t get up high enough to see out of it.”

      “We were at five thousand feet, Lojab,” Sarge said. “That’s high enough to see something, if there was anything to see.”

      “I think we should get moving,” Lojab said, “and see if we can climb out of here.”

      “And I say we stay here,” Sarge said, “until we have a better idea of what’s happened to us.”

      “Well, I vote for heading north until we come to a big city and civilization. Then we can get back to our own time.”

      “This СКАЧАТЬ