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'The Best Laid Plans'

"So let me get this straight," Bill Flask, an older, not well liked man in the crowd called out. "You want us to turn our nice little town into an armed camp because you killed the son of the most powerful man on both sides of the river?" Flask drew a deep breath while hiking up his pants over his considerable belly. "Well, I for one don't see why we all should suffer for something that you did! What I say is that you should either make your peace with Mr. Gleason or sail the hell away from here in that fancy boat of yours!"

There was some murmur of agreement, but many more that disagreed, some loudly. Molly Tweed, sitting up in the front row, stood up and faced the crowd.

"No-one here gives a rat's ass what you think, Bill Flask. Maybe it's you that should move away! Sam's family has been in the Mohawk are for three or four generations. Yours however just moved here from Kingston what, seven or eight years ago?"

"Going on a dozen, Molly Tweed, as you damn well know!" Flask replied. "Your late husband Fred was a good friend of mine! We were in the bloody Legion together!"

"It's true that you were in the same Legion as my Fred," Molly shot back; "but you were no friend of his! He thought you were a loud mouthed windbag then and I still think that now!"

Flask's usually florid face went beet red and his hands balled into fists. "You always were a sour woman, Molly! And one with a far too sharp tongue!"

"Better a sharp tongue like me than a dull brain like you, Fred." Molly came back with, then she turned to address the crowd. "The facts are plain and simple. Sam shot Gleason's son in self defence, but the old man will want his revenge no matter what. If Sam's not here he'll take out his anger on the rest of us --- you included Mister Flask. Probably burn the town just like he did Sam's boatyard. So I say we stop wasting time and get ready to fight!"

And get ready to fight they did.

Lists were made of weapons and ammunition and all men and women willing to use them; fire teams of two or three were made and each team was given a number. Fighting stations were assigned to various groups, with the fallback place being the red brick fire station where Doc and anyone with any medical experience set up a make-shift field hospital. Those too old to fight were given jobs of collecting food and water, others volunteered to cook for everyone. Those too young were sent to keep watch both on the road and by the river. Sam came up with a dozen other things that the good people of Mohawk could do to get ready to repel any 'unwanted attention' from Ralph Gleason or anyone else.

During a short break Sam asked Molly if she still ran Saturday sailing classes for the local kids.

"Sure I do, Sam. Fred and I never did have kids, but he dearly loved them. He loved teaching the youngsters to sail."

Who's teaching the now?" Sam asked.

"I've got several teenagers helping out."

"Who are the best two?"

Molly frowned. "Becky Landsdown and Vinnie Ferretti. Why?"

Sam nodded at the St. Lawrence. "I want to send a letter in a fast boat to Roger Grant on Grindstone."

"What do you want Grant to do?"Molly asked.

"He and his men are trained fighters," Sam said. "He said he wanted to help protect the river communities, well, this is his chance to prove it."

"Why not send a motorboat?" she asked. "It would be a hell of a lot faster."

"And more dangerous," Sam replied. "A motorboat is noisy, attracts attention. Many out there would kill for a fast boat --- either to use or to trade. A sailboat is as quiet as a cloud."

"I'll get word to both of them," Molly said. "You get your letter ready."

"I'll send two deer hunters along with the kids ---just in case."

"You think there'll be trouble?" she asked.

"I think there could be, and it never hurts to be careful."

"In that case then they can take my Fred's 'Scamp'. She's big enough to hold the two kids and your two deer hunters and she's fast!"

"Will the kids be able to handle her?" Sam asked.

Molly smiled. "They've both had her out a number of times. Vinnie thinks he's the better sailor but Becky is calm and level headed. "I'll tell them you want Becky as captain and Vinnie as first mate, that way everyone will know their place."

"Sounds good to me, Molly," Sam said. "I'll get back to you later today with the letter and to check out Fred's boat. I'd like them to leave tomorrow at first light. They should make Grindstone sometime before noon."

Molly's brow darkened. "As long as they don't run into any damn looters!"

Sam reached out and squeezed her hand. "That's why I'm sending the two deer hunters along. Harry Flood and Alistair McPherson."

The 'Mad Scott'?!" she said. "He's as crazy as a bedbug!"

"Maybe," Sam grinned. "But he's the best shot I know."

***

High on a wooded hill Martin Strongheart and several of his 'braves' secretly watched the comings and goings of the good people of Mohawk far below. They did this through powerful spotting scopes used by the military, animal photographers, devout bird watchers and long distant shooters, yet the only thing they were looking for today was Sam Burnham.

After the meeting Strongheart had seen Sam come out of the church. The woman that had emptied her gun into Billy-Ray was with him. They both went back to his boat moored out in the bay and Strongheart was afraid at first that they'd sail away and he'd lose them, but as the afternoon wore on they made no attempt to leave and even got in the dingy and rowed back to town.

"They sure are running around a lot down there!" Freddy Longtree said. "Looks like someone kicked anthill."

"It must have been that meeting they had at the church," Charley Greyeagle put in." What do you think it was about, Marty? The fire at the boatyard? The bodies that were there?"

"It was about us," Strongheart said quietly as he continued to watch the townspeople scurry about.

"Us?!" Freddy Longtree repeated, unconsciously bending down. "They can't see us up here, can they?!"

Strongheart turned to face the man he had first met in the reservation's grade school. Brave, loyal, but far from the sharpest knife in the drawer. "Not us three up here, Freddy. 'Us' as in all the men that work for Mr. Gleason. Looks like they are getting ready to fight back."

Freddy's angular face screwed up just like it had back in third grade. "But how would they know about Mr. Gleason. You said you brought Billy-Ray's bodyback with you?"

Charley Greyeagle shook his head in disgust. "Freddy, you are dumber than a bag of rocks! You see that big, white sailboat anchored out there?"

"Ya, it's a pretty one," Freddy grinned.

"Well, that's Sam Burnham's boat, the man that we're looking for?" Greyeagle continued. "Which means he came here after the shoot-out at the boatyard and probably told everyone what happened, including who did it. So, like Martin says, they know about 'us' and that sooner or later we'll be coming for them." He then leaned in and tapped Freddy's forehead hard three times with his knuckle. "Ya got that Noogimyster? Or did I go too fast for you?"

"Don't do that, Charley!" Freddy said, rubbing his forehead. "You know I don't like your stupid 'noogies'!"

"What's the matter, Freddy-Weddy?" Greyeagle taunted as he attempted to wrap Freddy again on his forehead. Strongheart's hand shot out and grabbed Greyeagle's --- and twisted.

"Oww! What the fuck, Marty?! That hurt!"

Stoneheart twisted a bit more, then released the hand. "It's not so funny when you're on the receiving end, is it Charley?"

"I was just teasing him like we did back in school" Greyeagle said, rubbing his sore wrist.

"Back in school Marty never teased me or gave me stupid 'noogies'," Freddy said. "It was always you and that other asshole, Lenny Tallbear!"

"Ya, well you were a dumb fuck then and you still are," Greyeagle casually replied, then turned to Strongheart. "So what do you do now, Kemosawbe? Stay up here watching the frightened 'kieflin' fill sandbags and board up windows, or do we go back and tell Old Man Gleason that Burnham is here and living on his boat?"

Strongheart controlled the urge to smack Greyeagle in his disrespectful mouth --- maybe even cut his disrespectful tongue out! He made the effort not for any 'humanitarian' reasons or because of any 'feelings of kindness deep within him' --- though he was loyal to the man that had taken him in long ago and he truly did love that man's daughter. He did so because of 'family'. Unlike his true friend, Freddy Longtree, who was not 'of his bloodline', the self-centered, foul-mouthed, disrespectful Charley Greyeagle was. It was 'distant' connection to be sure --- a second or third cousin on his asshole father's side --- but a 'blood connection' just the same --- and in this strange, depopulated, honourless 'world of Covid', where a man's blood lineage was all but wiped out, a Mohawk warrior cherished those of his own blood when he found them --- even if he didn't like them!

And such was the case between them. Charley Greyeagle, despite his many faults as a man and shortcomings as a warrior, was of Martin's lineage, and so was allowed to live.

"We stay and watch," Strongheart told his distant cousin. "Burnham will return to his boat to sleep. An hour after the lights go out we go down and take him."

"You mean kill him?" Freddy asked. Never 'comfortable' with violence, still Freddy had done his share in this Post-Covid world. Everyone had if they wanted to stay alive!

"Only if we have to," Strongheart said. "Mr. Gleason would prefer him alive if possible, and I don't intend to disappoint him a second time."

Greyeagle's smile was more of a sneer. "What? You don't want daddy mad at you again, Marty?" The sneer widened. "He might not let you play with his precious daughter any more."

This time Strongheart did hit him --- hard.

***

"What's wrong, Sam?" Fiona asked as she moved closer to him in the narrow bed. Outside the soft sounds of flowing water slid by the Witch's wooden hull while the moonlight bathed the boat in silver as it gently swung on its mooring. Overhead the wind whispered softly through the ship's rigging. All the lights were out in the town, including the one inside Sam's cabin.

Fiona snuggled closer. "Don't you want me here? You didn't seem to mind last night."

"That might have been a mistake, Fiona," Sam said quietly as he looked up at the distant stars that twinkled through the open skylight.

Fiona's body stiffened beside him and her hand was withdrawn from his chest. "What is it, Sam? Is it Helen? Do you still love her?"

Sam looked down at the beautiful young woman pressed against him and smiled. The moonbeams turned her into a silver dappled goddess. "Helen? She's got nothing to do with this."

"Oh really?!" Fiona said, sitting up and pushing her mane of dark hair out of her dark eyes. She was wearing one of Sam's old shirts as a nightgown --- the one with very few buttons. A portion of a white breast was turned to molten silver by the slanting light.

Sam found he suddenly had trouble concentrating. "Why bring Helen into this?"

Fiona seemed to tense up more at the mention of the older woman's name. "Because, after all these years you're still in love with her. And she's still in love with you!"

"Helen?" Sam repeated. "We're just good friends. We went to high school together."

"And she was your first real love, wasn't she? The one that everyone else gets compared to?" There was no accusation in her voice --- and even a hint of tenderness. "A man never forgets his first --- nor does a woman."

"That was long ago, lass. And whatever fire was there has long since burnt out decades ago --- long before you were even born."

Fiona seemed to change the subject --- but not really. "Jesus, Sam? How young do you think I am?"

Sam frowned. Even a lifetime bachelor like him knew that was a loaded question. "Oh, I don't now. Somewhere in your late – or middle twenties?"

Her hand came out of the silver darkness and gently pressed against his bearded cheek. "I'm thirty-four. Thirty-fivein two months, so you're not exactly 'robbing the cradle' here. Besides, how old are you? Fifty? Fifty five? It's hard to tell under that beard."

Sam's face was in shadow, and his voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a well. "I'm fifty-seven. That's old enough to be your father!"

She suddenly moved closer. Taking his hand she guided it inside her borrowed shirt. "My heart tells me that we should be together. Here, feel it beating. What does a few years difference in age matter? I want you and you want me, now, here. Helen is your past, Sam, but I'm your future."

Her words, lips, smell --- and the very 'nearness' of her all worked their age-old magic and Sam was whisked away to a place that thought he did not deserve. A place he had briefly glimpsed last night while she lay in his arms --- a place for better men than him --- men that did not learn the craft of murder and killing. Men that did not sell their souls to walk unscathed through a landscape of war. Such bliss as Fiona offered was only for better men who toiled to create life, not end it. And though he now spent his days crafting graceful wooden boats from once living trees, he knew that his hands would forever be stained with the blood of those he had killed.

The faces of the nameless men that he had killed over the years suddenly filled his brain just as the moonlight did the cabin. Half his own face was lit up by the silver light --- the other side, like his tortured soul, was in darkness. Fiona saw a tear trickling down his cheek, and her heart went out to him all the more than it already had.

"Sam! Sam, it's alright,' she whispered urgently. Moving closer, it was now her that held him in her encircling arms. "I'm here for you now, Sam. And I'll be here until you tell me to go."

And while the lovers slumbered below in each others arms, outside a large cloud scudded across a near full moon, the wind swung slightly to the south and the Witch, ever a watchful, restless entity, shifted uneasily on her mooring.

On the shore, under the sudden cover of the passing clouds, Martin Strongheart and his two braves quickly paddled their stolen canoe out towards the waiting Witch.

***