White Wasteland, Jeff Kirkham [ebook reader with highlight function TXT] 📗

a colossal death, the helicopter slammed into the hillside and immolated itself in a bright blossom of aluminum and fire. A split-second later, the clap of the impact reverberated across the battlefield.

The ground shook. A stunned silence rolled over the freeway like a funeral. The crackling flames snickered and the suffering men mewled, but the shooting had stopped.

Radios crackled in the fundamentalist army. Shouted orders. Field commanders yelled. Pandemonium ensued. Like a ferocious gut punch, the air whooshed out of the war.

Jeff recognized this moment. The turn of the fight. The nadir of violence. The return of his demons to their leather trunk. This time, it was the whiplash salvation of he, his men and their families.

“All stations. Cease fire. Cease fire. Cease fire,” Jeff barked into his radio.

The fundamentalists milled around for a moment. They collected their wounded. They put out the fires on their burning men. Then, they filtered back through the cars, back toward their side of the county line.

Mars, the god of war, turned and left the battlefield.

18

“Like the French and Indian War, we often forget the Mormon Civil War. One of the first skirmishes for power in the West, it ended almost before it began. Our history books are choked with the other, much-bloodier struggles for freedom after the Black Autumn collapse.

Only a few dozen men perished on the single day of the Mormon Civil War, but the manner of battle set the moral compass for the Wasatch Front to true north—painting civility and brotherhood on the banner of the new heartland. General Jeffery Kirkham, who led the Northern Mormon Army, chose to demoralize his enemy when he could’ve slaughtered them. The story of his restraint became legend from Nevada to the northern plains of Montana. It set a standard for the respect of life, despite the brutality all around them.

We will never know why General Kirkham attempted the largest less-than-lethal battle in history. But the almost-bloodless war set the civilization of the Wasatch Front forward many years and virtually guaranteed it would become the seat of power in the American West.

In contrast to the anarchy and pandemonium almost everywhere else, the unity that galvanized the Intermountain West began that day, on a field of battle.”

The American Dark Ages, by William Bellaher North American Textbooks, 2037

Ross Homestead

Oakwood, Utah

Jeff Kirkham, Jacquelyn Reynolds, Doc Erik and Tommy Stewart sat together in the conference room of the big house. It felt like a dream. It was as though the generous fates had taken Jeff’s best laid plans for a meager, mud hut, scrambled them, then built a palace in the same spot. He couldn’t have imagined a better outcome to the civil war.

Millions of people had died in the last two months, to be sure. Mostly, they’d died from the flu. Tara would never be the same, but she was still with them. The boys still had their mother and Jeff still had his shield maiden, though she would never go into battle again. Her eyes burned with the same fire, and that was all that really mattered.

Looking back, Jeff marveled at the events of the last week. It felt like a two hour winning streak at the craps table in Vegas. He had no idea why he’d won. It’d been luck wrapped in a dream bound with strings of destiny. If he did it again a thousand times in a thousand worlds, he could never replicate the outcome.

Jeff chuckled to himself. Of course, Chad Wade claimed full credit. The Navy SEALs had saved the day, once again.

The Homestead needed to start over. To begin again. So, Jeff had called this meeting.

The winter seemed to have broken. A warming breeze blew across the snowy mountain ramparts around the Homestead. The main drive flowed with runnels of snowmelt. Jeff had seen a few ambitious lily leaves peaking through the snow.

Jason Ross had fallen off the radar. He still kicked around the Homestead, but Jeff didn’t know what he did with his day. His father and brothers had either left with Tye or they were busy with their jobs. His wife Jenna was still in quarantine with the orphans.

The time had come to turn his attention to Homestead affairs. Jeff would not keep the control he’d taken from the committee. That’d never been his intention. In a way, the Homestead was much bigger than Jeff and Jeff was much bigger than the Homestead.

Pastor Jacquelyn was the heart. Doc Erik was the mind. Jeff was the sword. All that seemed right and proper.

Evan had recommended one of his fire team leaders, Tommy Stewart—Jenna Ross’ brother—to be the Homestead’s voice. Evan reported about all the times Tommy had challenged his command during their reconnaissance patrol up the center of Salt Lake Valley; how Tommy had become the team’s conscience.

When Jeff and Evan compared notes, they reached the same conclusion: this American “area of operation” had very little in common with Afghanistan or Iraq. The struggle for pacification of the city had a long ways to go, and it would require soul. Neither of them knew quite what that meant for military command. Tommy, though, had a sense for it, and both of the old warfighters agreed that the voice of the Homestead should straddle that line between war fighting and peacemaking. Tommy had proven himself as both a warrior and a peacemaker.

Doc Erik and Jacquelyn already knew why they’d been asked to sit at the heavy cherrywood table, but Tommy looked mystified. So, Jeff explained in the only way he knew how: a lecture.

“For most of European history north of the Alps,” Jeff laid out his academic prelude, “there was a balance of power between the military, the spiritual and the political. Checks and balances. Lords, bishops and a king. Someday, we might return to a republican government, but for now we need something more stable and more deliberate than democracy.”

“Will the new Mormon prophet be like a king?” Tommy asked. “He certainly has the support among