Night of Thunder

Her dad knew stuff. He was a great fighter, once a famous marine, and more recently had gone away for a while a few times and then come back, always sadder, sometimes with a new scar or two. But he had a talent-and in this world it was a valuable talent-and the core of it was that he knew a certain thing or two in a certain arcane subject area. He wasn’t reliable on politics or movies-hated ’em all-but he was superb in nature, could read land, wind, and sky, could track and hunt with anyone, and in the odd, sealed little world of guns and fighting with them he was the rough equivalent of a rock star. Never talked about it. Now and then she’d catch him just staring off into space, his face grave, as he remembered a lifetime of near misses or wounds that healed hard and slow. But then he shook off his pain and became funny and outrageous again. And she knew that other men respected him in almost mythical ways, because what so many of them dreamed of, he’d actually pulled off, even if the details remained unspecific. After his last absence, he’d returned with, among other things, a bad limp from being laid open across the hip and not stitched for several hours, and an incurable depression. Or so she thought. And then the depression was miraculously cured in a single afternoon when a Japanese-American civil servant had delivered…a new little sister. Miko. Adorable, insatiable, graceful, full of love and adventure. The family atmosphere lightened immeasurably, and the family condition became extreme happiness, even if, over two weeks, the old man’s hair went from a glossy brown to a gunmetal gray, and aged him ten or twenty years.

So her dad would know.

She pulled off the road, not wanting to have the cell in her hand when a truck full of logs or canned goods came barreling up the other lane off a blind turn. She got the cellular out of her purse, the car’s engine idling, the silence of a dark mountain forest all around her. She picked up the Bible and plucked the scrap out, holding it in one hand so she could describe it.

The phone rang and rang and rang until it finally produced her father’s recorded voice: “This is Swagger. Leave a message, but I probably won’t call you back.”

His sense of humor. Not everybody found it funny.

“Hey, Pop, it’s me. Call me right away. I have a question.”

Where was he? Probably sitting around with a crew of marine buddies, laughing to hell and gone about master sergeants from another century, or possibly out with Miko, teaching her to ride as he had taught Nikki to ride.

So she’d have to wait. Or would she? She put the scrap back in the Bible, pulled out her laptop, along in case she had to file remotely. The question, would there be a network out here? And the answer was-ta da!-yes. Wireless was everywhere!

She went to Google and pumped in “k 2:11” and waited as the magic inside hunted down k 2:11s the world over and sent the information back through blue glow to her. Hmm, nothing in any way connected to her issue. So she went to Mark 2:11 and got Mark’s words, which made no sense to her. Context. You have to have context.

Arrgh, nothing. She wanted a cigarette but had been trying to quit.

But then she thought of her good friends from Brazil who were taking over the world.

She requested Amazon.com, and instantly that empire responded.

A few tries at k 2:11 yielded nothing except some technical gibberish, a book on Russian submarines, another on World War II ships called corvettes.

Next she tried to work the bullet angle, just in case, and went to “Cartridges” and got a lot of info, maybe too much. After scanning its contents courtesy of the Amazonians, she settled on a book, The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting, because it seemed to offer the broadest overview of the subject, then hit the one-touch purchase option so that it would arrive soon. That was stupid. Her dad would call well before then, and explain all. Still, it made her feel that she had done something positive.

She put the laptop away and checked this way and that for traffic, preparing to edge onto the asphalt. She’d be home in an hour. Another day, another dollar for Nikki Swagger, girl reporter-whoa!

Some redneck in a low black car came whipping by, faster than light or sound. Man, was the guy crazy or what? She’d never seen a car move like that, a blur, a low hum, a whisper of streamline and chrome, there and gone and then vanished forever. Was it a dream, a vision, something out of a nightmare?