------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [u][b]June 6th, 1938: On a Long and Lonesome Highway, West of Wichita[/b][/u] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Floyd Switzer was sweating it. Miles of flat monotony surrounded him, nothing but corn as far as he could see. K-45 stretched for miles behind him and miles ahead. He wished more than anything that this place was as lonesome as it seemed, but everybody knew predators lurked this part of the plains. Floyd wasn't cut out to be infantry, but he knew how to drive, so that's what he did for Uncle Sam. But there was more to this mission than simply driving supplies. He sat in the cab of a Kenworth truck, a big long thing originally designed to hall lumber, but this one converted for military use, pulling a box semi-trailer. The front lines of the Second War between the States stretched over a distance that made the fabled Western Front of the Great War look the size of his granny's driveway. Maintaining supply lines over such a stretch was a challenge. The traitors knew it, and they made it worse. Bob Koster was cleaning his gun for the fifth time that day. Kansas could bore a man to death, and Bob was sitting shotgun so he didn't have the wheel to keep him busy. Bob didn't talk much, and Floyd was too distracted by their mission to start up a conversation. Bob only occasionally glanced up, but Floyd's eyes were constantly scanning, looking for even a little bit of dust, something to announce his fear was coming true so he could confront it instead of just sitting here worrying. Ironically, when it finally came, it wasn't from in front, and he didn't have a warning aside from a quick glint in his side mirror. There was no time between realization and the first round of machine gun fire to hit the side of the truck. "Sheeiiit" Bob Koster exclaimed. The way he said it had the quality of a sword being drawn from its scabbard at the start of the duel. He reached back and knocked hard on the wall of the trailer. Floyd instinctively pushed the accelerator, and Bob was bucked back and forth as he reached across Floyd's lap to work the crank that brought the driver's side shield down. The gunfire pattered across the metal shield just as it closed, but a bullet got through and took off Bob's middle finger. Blood sprayed across Floyd's lap. "Mercy sakes alive!" Bob shouted, "They took the best one!" He pressed his finger into the palm of his hand while using the other hand to close the shields in front and on his side. "Put the hammer down!" Floyd saw a brief glimpse of the armored truck attacking them, the old southern battle flag waving defiantly from the back, and a surprised looking man strapped to the side with a gun in his hand. Once the steel shields were up, all he could see was a thin strip in front of him. Southern raiders plied the barren expanse, stealing US war material like privateers of old. They set up traps. They didn't know that this truck, the one Floyd and Bob were driving, was a trap too. The hunters had fallen into a snare. Floyd jackknifed into a field, presenting the broadside of the trailer toward the circling southern raider. The sound of metal thumping against metal echoed through the truck. Unseen firing holes opened, and a truck full of US soldiers threw lead at the enemy raider. Floyd heard it, but all he saw was young corn stalks flying across his thin field of vision like a reverse waterfall of foliage. He piloted by ear now, guessing where the enemy was by who was firing where. He saw the armored vehicle speed in front of him, aiming at the small window. Bullets spat and sparked across the hood. Floyd ducked, and Bob stuck a pistol through the hole, firing one shot wildly at the enemy. Both cars furiously replowed the planted field. There was more than the one part to this trap. The enemy gunfire bounced harmlessly off the armor camouflaged into what looked like a regular truck, and the US bullets bounced just as harmlessly off the obviously armored Confederate raider. But the US Army had an advantage here. The enemy hadn't expected or prepared to come across armored prey, but the Army had expected it, and they had prepared. The Confederates, avoiding the broadside of the US truck, attempted to enfilade it from the front. Then they circled around as quick as they could to do the same from the back, assuming the back to be the best target. That was a mistake on their part. Floyd heard the big anti-tank gun go off, and felt its recoil push the trailer forward into the truck. All went quiet. Was it over? He became aware for the first time that Bob was cussing under his breath as he worked to stopped the bleeding in the stump of his finger. Machine gun fire resumed. The battle was still on. He saw the Confederate truck in front of him, the man on the side slouched over dead. "I wonder if this is all worth it." Floyd said out loud. "When we're standing over their carcasses like a heap of trophy bucks, I'll call it worth while." Bob replied. When it ended, it ended abruptly. He'd crossed a ditch, his hands white-knuckle against the steering wheel, the gunfire jittering at his nerves to the point he thought he might shatter into a million pieces. Then it all just... stopped. He was told by the gunners in the truck that the ditch gave them their opportunity. The Confederate truck was slowed for just a second, but it was long enough to the anti-tank gun to get of its perfect shot. They got out of the truck, Bob holding his bloody-drenched to keep it up. "Ain't she a beautiful sight" Bob said, looking at the smoking heap of Southern pride with a gory splatter where the outside gunner had once been. Floyd felt empathy. Not for the raiders; they had got what they deserved. He empathized with their truck, smouldering, smashed, ruined. Inside he felt the same. ----------------------------------------------- [u][b]June 6th, 1960: Irgalem, Ethiopia[/b][/u] ----------------------------------------------- The war hadn't truly ended for Floyd Switzer. He'd grown up in Colorado, but it was no longer home to him. After all these years it was still the front line. The seasons rolled by, the world moved on, and Floyd still couldn't get passed his war years. He went to the University of Maine, as far away from the battlefields as he figured he could get while still being in lower forty eight, but it didn't help. Even in Maine, it felt like the war was just on the horizon, a ghost staring at him through a doorway at the end of the hall. He shivered when he saw the sunset, remembering the dead resting on that horizon. The United States was ruined for him. He got his degree and left. Ethiopia wasn't his first choice. It was a black nation after all, not one likely to accept a white man from the states, but his mind was changed by a professor who recommended it to him. Ethiopia was developing, trying to become one of the great powers, and it accepted white talent with open arms, without any of the racial ugliness of Rhodesia or South Africa that reminded him of America's eternal enemy: the southern states. The best part, it was almost halfway across the planet. He couldn't get further from America without treading water. He sat on the tailgate of a landrover, picking on [i]kocho[/i] bread wrapped up in the frond of a false banana tree. Behind him, a handful of men from Addis Ababa surveyed the hillside, and others worked with shovels and picks. He heard the bell on Betty Lou's collar tinkling somewhere in the bushes. "Betty Lou." he called out, making a tsking sound. The dog marched out of the bush and to his side. She was an American Eskimo and Beagle mix - a mutt, though she looked like a miniature English Setter. She looked up at him. "Don't go where I can't see you, girl." he said, patting her head, "There are critters out there that'd give you a real fight." Down the hill a cloud of dust formed. They were coming. He buttoned reclasped his the hanging strap on his overalls and stood up. Betty Lou sat at attention, staying close enough to him that he could feel her warmth on his legs. The caravan was made up of several safari type vehicles. They were a mixed race group. Funny he should notice that. Blacks and whites sat chummily together in a way that would be highly illegal in the South - he spat at the mere thought of the Southern United States. That his guests were flouting some rule from half a world away endeared them to him already. They pulled up in front of him. He didn't know who was the Ethiopian Emperor, though he figured it wasn't any of the whites, or the little Jap fellow, and it probably wasn't any of the drivers with their identical uniforms and red fezzes like a parade of armed Shriners. Floyd figured it was probably the sly looking moonfaced fellow with the Chaplin mustache. "His Imperial Majesty, Sahle the First." one of the Shriners announced. The workers and surveyors stopped working and bowed. Floyd followed their lead, and was surprised when it turned out the Emperor was the youngest in the group. Sahle was taller than the rest except for his Shriner guards, had a boyish face, and something of an Impish look about him like a rascally kid from the funnies. "This is Mister Switzer from America" The man with the Chaplin 'stache introduced him, "He is an engineer from America, and he's leading the team that is modernizing our infrastructure." They were not looking at Floyd himself, who figured he wasn't too amazing a sight except for being possibly the only white man in overalls in all of East Africa. But they did seemed transfixed on his feet. And of course they were. He was standing on a square chunk of paved blacktop. "This is what the road'll look like." he said, kneeling down to touch the asphalt beneath his boots. Betty Lou sniffed his hand. "It'll be longer of course." he chuckled and spat a glob of tobacco juice, "We get the bitumen from the A-rabs, the gravel from pits somewhere up north. It'll follow the old War Road for the most part, but we're trying to skip places where it washes out. That's what we're doing up here." he stood up and looked behind him, where workers were backing up from a rise in the ridge. He winced before the explosion came, a big bursting roaring thing, clearing the troublesome rise and sending a shiver of bad memories down his back. He'd been so busy repressing war memories that he hadn't seen the faces of his guests in all their comical surprise. "That'll do it." he said stoically. As his ears got used to the sound of things not exploding right next to him, he heard the puttering engine of a small motorbike somewhere down the slope. "We'll try to stay on higher ground to avoid the weather..." he started as the motorbike arrived piloted by a man in Khakis. The new arrival ran to Mr Chaplin Mustache and gave him a message that made the latter's face drop. "I apologize for the suddenness, but his majesty and myself must return to the capital. Dinner will be served here, and your lodgings have been settled. Again, I apologize." The Emperor followed him into a Landrover and they sped down the mountain, leaving everyone else stunned. People whispered about what might of happened, and Floyd was left wondering if he was supposed to continue his demonstration. "Helluva country, girl" he reached down to pet his dog. "We'll get you some food in a minute it sounds like."