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Title: The Long Winter
Warnings: This is an Emergency AU. The racial prejudice written about in this story is not.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything belonging to Emergency! I will put the characters back when I am done with them.
Rating: Teen just to be safe
Young Johnny Gage woke up from his pallet with a shout. The just turned eighteen year old Lakota boy lived deep in the heart of one of the largest American Indian reservations. His grandfather, the tribe’s shaman, knelt beside him and merely looked at him. The spirits had marked the boy years ago as a budding shaman and so he had been teaching the boy for years. He knew this was no ordinary dream. It was the same vision dream that had been plaguing him for over a month now but he didn’t know what to do about it. “What did you see?” he asked quietly as soon as Johnny’s gasps had faded somewhat.
“Father Sky was bleeding. Mother Earth was sleeping under snow. But Grandfather, there was too much snow! It drowned everything in the world!” Johnny didn’t want that to be what he thought it was. Like all of the children of the tribe he had been forced to go to the white man’s school as a child and he knew enough about the modern world to know what a nuclear winter was. Fortunately for him and the other children of their small tribe there was no Catholic boarding school nearby. He had heard the horror stories that came out of those schools from other Lakota children who weren’t so lucky. As it was the education at the tribal school was at best, incomplete and at worst, nonexistent. In spite of that Johnny spoke and wrote two languages, Lakota and English. At his grandfather’s insistence he had taught himself as much as he could about the white man’s world. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it was his grandfather who insisted, he would have been jeered and ridiculed for wanting to know so much about the enemy of their people. For that was still how many of their nation still saw the white man even after more than a hundred years. The treatment they received from the American government didn’t help change matters any.
“The long winter is coming Johnny,” the old shaman said sadly. “The white man has refused to listen to Mother Earth and Father Sky for more years than I or any one else can remember. Someone somewhere is calling the winter to Mother Earth. What else did you see?” His grandson was wise in many ways in spite of his youth. If the spirits had shown him something, it would be of great importance to the tribe. Even as a youngster the spirits had dealt more directly with Johnny than any shaman in living memory.
“I saw myself in a white man’s city. It was huge, all concrete and steel! How can they live in those places, Grandfather? I saw myself riding a fire truck and fighting fires, rescuing people. Why would I see that? Why would the spirits want me to go there?” The boy looked bewildered. All of his life he had followed where the spirits led him as he had been taught. He knew it was a bad idea to argue with the spirits, but still, a white man’s city? And worse yet, one that was so very far away?
The old man sighed. “I had hoped that you wouldn’t see that. I had hoped that it was only an old man’s fears and not the direction of the spirits. So be it. The tribe will send you where the spirits wish you to go, but I will miss you Johnny. You had better write; do you hear me? It doesn’t take that much to write a letter young man!” he gently admonished.
Johnny grinned. There was no question that he was going, but he was always going to question why as he did so. So, the spirits wanted him to become a fireman in LA did they? Well then he was going to become the best firefighter ever! Little did the young man know that it wouldn’t be for his firefighting skills that he would become known in LA
FIVE YEARS LATER – LOS ANGELES
Johnny Gage looked around the table at his shift mates. He no longer wondered why the spirits had sent him here or what he needed to learn. The things that he had seen since he started this job! How some people could be so foolish and others could be so brave was beyond him many times and beyond his partner as well. He was now one of the firemen/paramedics in the program that had been signed into law two and a half years ago. He and his partner, Roy DeSoto, were also considered the best paramedic team in the state and possibly the country. He was the first man to learn any medicine at all from his tribe in over 70 years. Although his grandfather was a shaman, his training had been cut short by the white men who had killed his teacher.
And it had been Johnny who had discovered just what the white doctor’s medical clinic was doing to the members of his tribe when he was twelve. If the spirits hadn’t led him to his nephew, the wonderful little boy would be long dead now. Oh spirits! How could they have tried to murder a newborn child and then call it a still birth? Even if the child was born an Indian he deserved to live and in one of the worst horrors that had happened to the tribe in years was the discovery that the doctor, instead of just delivering his sister in law’s child, he had removed her womb completely. There was a certainty among the tribe that there had been no medical reason for it. He was even more certain now. It had been an act of genocide, especially for such a small tribe who depended upon all of their members to bring children into this world.
He had never thought he would have a second tribe, but the spirits had guided him here as well as back home. Only now it was often to save his fellow firemen. The spirits had directed him to save each of the lives of his shift mates more than once. The vision dreams of the long winter still plagued him, but at least after his first few months in LA he knew what needed to be done to save his people. The trouble was, his people now included the firefighters and families of Station 51 shift A and two doctors and a nurse at Rampart Hospital.
There was a very large back to the land movement going on and there was a great deal of resources here in LA that Johnny had taken advantage of. He had shipped back to the reservation books on solar heating and greenhouse gardening, how to books on different types of construction and different ways to generate electricity to run hydroponics other types of gardening under lights. He had even gotten books on basics that all of his people already knew and sent them home with a letter stating that it had happened once before that they had lost information that ‘everyone’ knew. These books would help to prevent that from happening again. He sent animal raising and care books both for the animals they had always had and for ones that most of his people had never seen before except in pictures.
But the best part of that first year had been when he had sent an order of baby chicks to his sister and her husband. He had been right; they had very quickly taken to raising the animals and sharing them with the rest of the tribe. Four and a half years later there wasn’t a single family that didn’t have at least a single chicken. He had spent six months researching exactly what kind of chicken would do best on the Rez and the scrounging birds had done well, although not as well as the breeders would have expected because the Rez wasn’t the best place on earth to raise anything. But still, the hardy animals that Johnny had sent over the last four years had done very well with careful watching and even more careful husbandry.
The funniest thing for Johnny was that so few people outside of his tribe knew about the situation. His tribe was turning their lonely and forgotten piece of wasteland, at least in the white man’s eyes, into a place where they could wait out a nuclear winter and then rebuild afterwards. And the only white men that knew at all were all sitting at the table with him. Not that they really knew what was going on. All that they knew was that he had an interest in the back to the land movement and that he was sending information, animals, supplies and equipment back home to his family.
He had never once considered what being accepted as a firefighter would mean when over three quarters of the firefighters in LA were white, including his oh so blond and blue eyed partner. It was enough to make him ashamed of himself. How many times had he been told and shown by the spirits that it was only those who deliberately turned away from the land that were not to be trusted? How could he have forgotten the tribal history his grandfather had told him of white children and sometimes even older people who had been taken in raids and added to the tribe? A short little bark by the laughing coyote next to Chet Kelly froze Johnny in mid bite.
The other firefighters noticed Johnny’s frozen state and glazed eyes but pointedly ignored it. That Johnny had a gift was a matter that was never discussed after the first time Johnny had declined answer questions about it. In fact he had been so very uncomfortable talking about the subject that even Chet, the station prankster and Johnny’s personal nemesis, had never brought it up again. That didn’t mean that they hadn’t learned to tell the signs when Johnny’s gift was acting up though. None of these men would be alive if they weren’t observant. The glazed eyes meant that Johnny was seeing something again. Four times in the first three months Johnny had worked with them they had seen that look. Each time Johnny had led them straight to a lost victim of some kind. It was enough to convince even the most stubborn of men that Johnny’s gift, whatever it was, was real. And that it was something to be grateful for. They didn’t know how many times Johnny had seen or heard something that had helped or even saved their lives. When he was ready he would say something to who ever needed to be told. In the mean time they would keep their guard up a little higher.
He had spent several hours in between runs thinking about what Coyote was trying to tell him. That Chet was a son of Coyote had never been in doubt, what with the way Chet loved practical jokes but the idea that Coyote was pushing was, well more than a bit strange to him. Chet Kelly wasn’t a man that was the ideal raiding candidate, after all. But every time he thought of the raids and the people who were adopted into the tribe through the raids (and no other way! to Johnny’s astonishment) Coyote would bark, dance or just plain go nuts trying to move his attention to Chet. The signs were unmistakable. The trouble was he had no idea of how to handle it. Johnny had been trying to figure out what he was going to do about Chet all day when he opened his locker door and got hit with one of the Phantom’s water balloons. Roy waited but all Johnny said was, “That’s it. If Coyote wants his son, he can have him!”
Roy was surprised. “What no ranting, no raving? And who’s Coyote? Another personality like the Phantom?”
“Nope,” Johnny said still calm. He walked over to the day room where the rest of A shift was sitting around watching TV. Roy followed him, not completely understanding why his partner, who was well known for his yelling fits whenever Chet set off one of his pranks, was so calm.
“Chet,” Johnny said, standing over and dripping on him.
“What? And can you not drip all over me?” Chet asked with a grin.
“I wasn’t going to say this where everyone could hear it, but right now I just don’t care. Get your affairs in order. Coyote is coming to claim you and he can have you as far as I’m concerned!” John turned his back on his fellow fireman and stomped back to the locker room.
Chet sat there in shock and the others wondered out loud what the hell Johnny was talking about. “I’m dead. I’m a dead man walking.” Chet said in a daze.
“What do you mean Kelly?” Captain Stanley knelt down in front of Chet.
“Coyote is one of the spirits. He’s the Father of Mischief. It’s kind of like a Patron Saint of Practical Jokers or something.” At the blank looks he was getting Chet explained, “I did a lot of research into Native American cultures. Basically they believe in God, they just call him the Great Spirit. Then there is Mother Earth and Father Sky, they’re kind of like a combination of Archangels and nature or the world itself, I really had a hard time with that one. Umm, the Great Spirit gave people life, but Mother Earth and Father Sky provide life for everyone and everything.” Chet shrugged, “Like I said, I had a hard time figuring that one out; especially since I figured Johnny didn’t want to talk about it. The way he is about his gift and his privacy, I didn’t want to be pushy, you know? Anyway, where we have guardian angels, they have animal spirits. Coyote is one of them. Johnny just said that a spirit wants me.”
Captain Stanley walked out to where Johnny was cleaning up the water mess in his locker. “John, just tell me, is Chet going to die?” he asked softly.
“Let me explain it this way, Cap. Chet Kelly is going to die, but the Phantom is as far as I know going to live for a very long time.” Stanley gave him a puzzled look. “He’s going to be kidnapped Captain and this last little stunt of his convinced me to go along with it. He won’t be hurt, but he won’t be coming back either. And he’s really going to want to pay me back by the time he’s done.”
“Kidnapped, Gage are you crazy?”
“Don’t worry, Cap. You can even watch if you want to. You see, this kidnapping is going to save his life. You know I’d never want to see him hurt. On the other hand, letting him stew about this and then find out after he gets through the kidnapping that it’s all been a prank designed to save his life is very appropriate for Coyote’s son.” Johnny grinned. “It’ll also be a great revenge for all of these damned water balloons!”
Stanley grinned in agreement. “Now it is to save his life?” he wanted to make sure.
“Yep, in fact, I’m probably going to have to arrange for similar things to happen to all of my family here in LA. Something very bad is coming, Cap, something so bad that I really can’t explain. You would never believe me. Hell, I don’t want to believe, but I’ve had the visions for far too long. The vision dreams are never wrong.”
“All right, I’ll even help. I’ll tell Mike and Marco what’s really going on if you tell Roy. It’ll be good for Chet to get his life straightened out anyway. And as for the rest of us, well, we trust you Johnny. You’ve never steered us wrong before, you won’t now.” Stanley reassured the young man.
“Then the rest of you had better get your affairs in order as well. It won’t be safe to stay in LA much longer. We won’t be able to stay for more than six months at the very most and we have to get the kids and wives out of here long before then. They’ll need a chance to get settled in. I’m going to send Chet ahead first, so he can be settled when they show up. They can lean on him and since they all know him he’ll have their trust from the start.”
Stanley waited until Chet was lying down in the bunkroom and Roy and Johnny were out on a call before he told Mike and Marco what Johnny had told him. “So something really bad is going to happen to LA and we need to get our families out? Including us?” Marco asked. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Johnny and getting Chet out of LA this way really would be the perfect revenge but he didn’t like the idea of just leaving when he knew an emergency was coming.
“From the look on Johnny’s face, Marco, I think if we stay we all die,” Cap said grimly. “I don’t like it either and I’ll be bringing that up with Johnny but if we trust Johnny’s gift at all we have to get our families ready to leave. Maybe if we aren’t here at the station when it hits or something, I don’t know,” he shrugged. “He said he’d be making arrangements for our families to get somewhere safe. It’ll be the same place he’s sending Chet.”
“Chet’ll look after our families,” Mike said satisfied. “And having him chew on it for a while might mean that the Phantom will get some rest too.” The other two looked at each other. They hadn’t thought about that. It was looking like there was more than one upside to this situation.
One month later Johnny let his two older brothers into his apartment. “Are you sure about this?” James Gage wanted to know. Kidnapping was illegal now, not that the white men had every really been happy with their traditional way of widening the gene pool.
“Coyote wants his son adopted into the tribe in the traditional way. Don’t ask me why, maybe it’s because I’m the Phantom’s favorite target for practical jokes. Remember, Coyote wants this done traditionally. So when you get him back to the Rez, turn him over to Grandfather,” Johnny instructed.
“Sure, no problem, we’ll just walk right up to him, hit him over the head and drag him off to the reservation. No one will even notice,” Charlie Gage said sarcastically.
“No they won’t. Chet has been putting his affairs in order for the past month and he’s been getting jitterier by the second. He doesn’t know it, but I’ve already had him sign an extended leave form for the fire department. All you have to do is help the very drunk Irishman back to your plane,” Johnny grinned. This was perfect. He would get his revenge for all of the soaked uniforms, shaving crème bombs, etc. that Chet had launched at him over the years and still save his annoying brother’s life in the process. “Listen, the long winter is almost here. If there is anything we don’t have that’s on the lists, we need to really make a push on it now. When Chet’s gone I’m going to tell the rest of the crew what’s going on. They’ll be able to help get the rest of what we need quietly.” There was a knock at the door. “Well, that should be Coyote’s son now.”
Less than fifteen minutes later Johnny was checking out Chet’s vitals as the drugged fireman listed on the back of his couch. “Every thing looks good,” Johnny said as he hung his stethoscope around his neck. “The drug I gave him will wear off in about eight hours. By then you should be back on the Rez. Don’t worry; I’ve taken care of everything on this end.” Johnny turned to Charlie. “You can explain the situation then but don’t be too hard on him.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll tell him all about the stupid idiots over in Russia who set off a nuclear winter by not maintaining their nuclear weapons properly.” James shook his head in disgust at the idiots who had wanted the things built in the first place. Wasn’t it enough that they had enough to destroy the entire planet once? Did they really need to have enough to destroy it several times over?
Johnny drove his brothers and Chet out to the airport where James kept his old cargo plane. The old plane had been abandoned out at the small airport where James worked. Between the gold that some of the tribe panned out of the streams and the tiny mine that the tribe maintained and the Gage brother’s jobs, the tribe was able to maintain and fly the cargo plane once a month to various destinations to pick up supplies that they would need to survive the long winter ahead. Loading Chet into the extra seat in the cockpit, Johnny was surprised to see that there were several sheep in crates along one side of the plane.
“Who is getting the sheep?” Johnny asked.
“Mom,” his brothers chorused in defeat.
“Well, does she have that loom set up yet?” Johnny asked chuckling.
Charlie nodded. “Johnny you wouldn’t believe what she’s got set up. Goats, rabbits, those long haired cattle and horses you sent us information on. I swear the woman has an entire ranch bulging with animals and all of them produce something she’s going to turn into clothes. I swear she’s paranoid about how deep the snow is going to get. Heck, even the birds she’s been making into pillows, feather beds and down comforters.”
“Well, you know how Mom is about the cold,” Johnny said with a laugh.
“Well, we’ve got food supplies and greenhouse windows this trip. You wouldn’t believe how cheap the fresh vegetables, fruit and other stuff is out here.” James shook his head. “Basically we’re loading up as much as we can on everything. Umm, Johnny, if the spirits are saying we should start raiding again, do you think you could look around for a child? Only if the spirits move you to, I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” James hastened to reassure his little brother.
Johnny sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, James, but I think there is one child that we can raid tonight and get away with it. Yesterday my partner and I found a baby dumped in the garbage behind a restaurant where there was a fire we were called to. Charlie, could you stay here while we go get the baby?”
Charlie nodded and watched as his older and younger brothers ran back out into the night. He looked over at the one Johnny had called a son of Coyote. If he really was a son of Coyote, he should appreciate this practical joke.
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“Hey, Dix!” Johnny whispered as he stuck his head in the nurses’ lounge.
Dixie looked up and Johnny saw that she had been crying. She held up her hand. “It’s not as bad as it looks Johnny. It’s just that poor little girl down in the nursery. No one wants her because she’s a mixed race child. The social worker told me bluntly that if we were to ‘lose’ her it’d be better for everyone. Johnny how in God’s name can anyone say such things?”
James was startled by the fact that this white nurse was protesting the murder of a mixed race child just as a woman of his own tribe would be. “It’s ok, Dix. That’s actually a good thing. Because I found someone who does want her, but no social worker would ever let them have her.” Johnny said as he slid into the seat across from her and took her hands. “Nurse Dixie McCall, meet my brother James. He and his wife can’t have anymore kids thanks to someone a lot like that but they’d sure love to have another child anyway they can get one.”
Dixie looked at Johnny. Johnny was one of her favorite people and more than that, someone she considered family. If it was his brother that took the child she would be more than willing to ‘lose’ the baby! “Are you sure you want her?” she asked as she hurriedly got up and started pulling James down the corridor.
“Yes we do,” he answered honestly. He would love to have a daughter no matter how she came to live with them.
“Good! You make sure she grows up running around with lots of fresh air and sunshine and love!” Dixie said fiercely. She scooped the small bundle out of the basinet in the nursery and handed her to James. “Come this way!” She continued to drag James by the sleeve, hardly noticing that he was even taller than Johnny and much broader across the shoulders. She opened a closet and pushed the three of them inside before following them. “Here are some supplies. This is the formula we’ve been giving her. She still doesn’t have a name. Pick something beautiful, just like she is! Here are some extra clothes, blankets and diapers.” Dixie shoved the supplies into a bag and shoved the bag at Johnny. “Good luck!” Then she slipped out the door.
“Tell me we can raid her little brother!” James said in Lakota as they walked out of the hospital. “That is one woman I could trust with my children. John, I have a daughter!”
Johnny laughed at the look on his brother’s face and said, “We have to get her back to the Rez first James!” All in all, this was turning out to be a good day they both decided.
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Smiles was waiting at the private air strip the tribe had built by hand for James’ plane. She was a short stout woman who almost constantly smiled but rarely said anything. She knew that James and Charlie Gage would be bringing the last of her windows with them on this trip. She had adapted the ‘modern’ underground home style of building with the light bouncing practiced by the Egyptians when they built their pyramids for her greenhouse. If the experiment worked well, she would be able to grow some winter hardy vegetables as well as the leaf crops that were essential to maintaining the vitamin C levels in their diets. Fortunately it was more the light that was the problem rather than the heat, although it was probable that would change when the long winter came.
When the plane landed James was the first to get out. He was carrying a small bundle and went directly to his wife. He laid the small bundle in her arms and gently guided her to his grandfather. He bowed his head in respect for the tribe’s shaman and said, “Grandfather, may I present my daughter to the tribe?”
As tears ran down the smiling face of Dawn Gage, cheers rang out from the watching crowd. As Grandfather Gage presented the girl child to the tribe in the impromptu ceremony, Smiles noticed that Charlie Gage was half carrying a stumbling white man out of the plane. She hurried over to help him and got a shock. It was one of the firemen that Johnny worked with!
“We need to take him to Grandfather,” Charlie whispered. Smiles nodded and threw the man’s other arm over her shoulders. She had a sneaking suspicion that this was the Coyote’s son that Johnny had talked about in his letters. When Grandfather was done with done with the presentation of the child, Charlie and Smiles brought Chet forward. By this time the drug that Johnny had given him was wearing off, so he was somewhat aware but unable to really control his body. “Grandfather, this is our new brother. He is Coyote’s son and Coyote has asked that he be brought into the tribe in the traditional manner.”
Smiles knew that this meant that Johnny had helped bring this man here. “Then we will do as Coyote asks,” Grandfather said. Smiles turned them and helped lead the stumbling man over to her cart. She wasn’t the only person with a cart and horse meeting the plane, but hers was the only one that was padded. She could come back for her windows later. Now was the time to prepare for the feast to welcome the new members of their tribe.
Chet finally came all the way awake when he realized he was being washed in an ice cold stream by a group of women in American Indian costumes. “AAAH!” he yelped, shivering from the cold water. Then he took a second look at the women. These women weren’t white, and their clothes weren’t costumes. He also saw that one was a mature woman with a distinct resemblance to one Johnny Gage. When he tried to talk, they merely giggled at him and dosed him more with the cold water. Soon they hauled him out of the stream although it wasn’t soon enough for Chet Kelly. They dried him off and dressed him a set of leathers. Then they dragged him down into a set of caves. It was obvious from the number of things in the caves that he was led through that these caves were being lived in. He was led quite a long way down and found that he was in a large cavern with a small bonfire in the center. Around the fire was looked like an entire tribe of Indians, although he had no idea how many that would be. They weren’t all dressed in leathers but all of the clothes looked worn and old. It was obvious that none of these people had very much in the way of worldly possessions, or rather that they were pouring what money they had into other things since the wool rugs and pillows they were sitting on were brand new.
The four women sat him down in between James and Charlie Gage. Chet knew both of them from their visits to the station. “Don’t tell me, Johnny’s behind this,” Chet sighed. Both men laughed.
“Johnny said that Coyote wanted you to be adopted into the tribe in the traditional way,” Charlie explained from beside him.
“And here I thought he meant that I was going to get hurt in a fire,” Chet shook his head. He caught the looks that the people were giving him. “Johnny knows things. He has for as long as I’ve known him anyway. He told me about a month ago that I should put my affairs in order. I thought for sure I was going to die. Man he got me good!”
“Yes and no, Phantom,” Grandfather said from his place beside the fire. He passed the new baby back to James and Dawn. There were nine days left to figure out a name for her. He would have to be especially watchful until then to figure out what it would be. “Yes, Coyote told Johnny you needed to be brought into the tribe in the traditional manner. You are now a member of the Gage family and my grandson. And yes, Johnny did get a kick out of this. But, this is also a very serious situation. For the last five years Johnny and I have been having vision dreams of the long winter. The white men call it a nuclear winter. It is coming, and very quickly now. That is why we have moved the tribe down here. Johnny was sent by the spirits to LA to help our tribe prepare. We shouldn’t get any radiation poisoning here because the cause will happen on the other side of the world. You have been chosen by the spirits to wait out the long winter with us as a member of our tribe. I suspect many of your shift mates will be joining us as well.”
The news rocked Kelly’s world. As he sat there stunned by the implications of Grandfather Gage’s words, Smiles sat down next to him, shoving Charlie Gage over and handing Chet a plate of food. The other women smiled or giggled, but all of them accepted her choice. She had not been able to find a husband among the men on the reservation and hadn’t wanted to travel to other reservations to search for one. The spirits had brought this man to her and the other women were grateful on her behalf. Chet was too stunned to realize that he had been claimed not only by the Gage family as a son and brother, but by a woman as her husband to be as well.
Johnny pulled up to Station 51 in his land rover early as he wanted to make sure that he had a minute to talk to Captain Stanley before the shift started. With Chet off to the Rez there wasn’t a chance that he’d get hit with another prank so he hadn’t bothered to get dressed in his uniform before coming in. The minute he walked into the locker room he found the captain waiting for him. “Hey Cap, don’t worry, he got off ok.”
Stanley sighed. “No problems then?”
“Nope, and my brother called me this morning telling me that we can get all of the kids out whenever their parents are ready to send them. It will be at least another month before we’re ready for any other adults though.”
“I think it’s a good idea to get our families out, but I gotta tell you John, I don’t like the idea of abandoning LA County to some disaster.” The idea had been eating at Stanley for the entire month, leaving him snappy and upset as more time went by.
“We won’t be abandoning LA County, Cap,” Johnny looked sorrowfully into Stanley’s eyes. “One shift of firefighters and two doctors and a nurse aren’t going to be able to make a bit of difference here. But back on the Rez, they could mean the difference between life and death for a whole lot of people.”
“This is going to be big, isn’t it?” Stanley whispered going pale. “And what’s a Rez?”
Johnny smiled, for a moment he had forgotten that his captain didn’t know. “That’s what we call the reservation Cap.”
Stanley nodded. He suddenly noticed that Johnny’s hair hung just below his collar. He knew that the only reason Johnny’s hair was cut at all was because it was part of the regulations. He had explained once that short hair in his culture meant that the person was in mourning and he kept his as long as the regulations would allow. His brothers both boasted hair that was long enough to sit on. If Johnny was letting his hair grow again, it meant that he was heading back to his family, and not for a short visit.
“Yeah Cap, it’s going to be big.” Johnny agreed softly. “Bigger than you can imagine. Bigger than I want to imagine, but the Great Spirit isn’t giving me a choice. The vision dreams are coming more frequently now. Used to be, I’d have them about once every couple of weeks. Now I’m getting them every couple of days.”
Stanley nodded; he’d seen Johnny waking up from nightmares. The last time he’d had one at the station, Stanley had seen the look he’d thrown at Kelly. The sheer relief on Johnny’s face had told him a lot. Whatever was going to happen was going to be really bad and Johnny was grateful that his nemesis and friend would be safe.
“My girls are ready to go. Since they’re both teenagers, they’ll be able to help look after the real little ones. Marco’s family is getting ready. They should be ready to go in about two weeks. I’m sure my girls can take some of the Lopez kids with them.” Stanley rubbed his chin. “Jo DeSoto and Amy Stoker won’t go without their kids. Johnny, can I ask you what you’ve been seeing?” Stanley didn’t know if he really wanted to know what was coming, but he knew without a doubt that Johnny did know what was coming. If it could give his man a little relief from the strain, then he would gladly shoulder the burden with him.
“You know how the politicians keep saying stupid things like ‘it’ll never happen but we’re prepared for it if it does?’” Johnny asked.
Stanley snorted. There had been far too many ‘never happen’ incidents as far as he was concerned and they were never really ready for them when they did. “God, the stories I’ve heard and told about that one!”
“Yeah, well the Russian’s aren’t any better, except that they don’t tell their people anything at all. They aren’t telling anyone that they aren’t taking care of their nukes.” Johnny waited but Stanley caught onto what he was talking about immediately.
“One’s going to go off?!!?” Stanley asked as his face lost all color.
“The Long Winter is coming, Cap. There will be snow falling everywhere within five months, probably a little less now. My people have been getting ready for the last five years. That’s why I’ve been doing all that back to the land stuff. We not only have all of the food we need to get through the next fifteen years, we also have enough seeds, animals and animal feed and other supplies to start all over when spring comes again.”
“Do you really think it will last that long?”
“I don’t know. But it’s better to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We’ve got enough stuff now that if everything outside the Rez is destroyed, we can keep going without outside help. But I’ve got lists of what we don’t have here,” Johnny pulled out a notebook and showed it to Stanley.
Stanley took it and looked over it. “Hmm, midwife equipment, entertainment reading, rescue gear, rock climbing equipment?”
“The Rez is in the heart of the Black Hills, Cap. Even with everyone living underground, we’ll still have to be on the surface sometimes and we need to be prepared to do rescue work both on the surface and underground. I’ve been sending medical supplies for the last two years, now that I know what I’m doing with it. I’ve talked with Dr. Brackett and he’s been telling me what a good clinic/hospital needs. He doesn’t know what’s coming of course. He thinks I’m just asking him so I can help improve the clinic back home with better equipment.” Johnny knew that Dr. Brackett was an excellent doctor who wasn’t prejudiced, but he wasn’t a patient man and didn’t believe in anything that couldn’t be proven with science.
“I’ll talk to Mike and Marco. What about Chet’s stuff?” Stanley was trying his best to take this news in stride for Johnny’s sake but he knew it would take a while to sink in.
“I’ve got the keys to his place and he’s already done most, if not all of the prep work for me. I’ll see to it that what he wants to keep gets sent to the Rez. I’ll even make sure he has a supply of water balloons,” he added with a grin.
Stanley clapped him on the shoulder and went on in to his office. After he shut the door, he fell into his chair and quietly freaked. Nuclear warfare was everyone’s worst nightmare. And Johnny had just told him it was about to come true. He just sat there shaking until he managed to pull himself together. This wasn’t the disaster he had told his wife to prepare for. This was worse, much worse. He called his wife. They had some changes to make to their plans.
The next four and a half months passed quickly. Everyone and their families left for the reservation until only Captain Stanley, Roy and Johnny were still left in LA. Then all that was left to do was to somehow persuade Dr’s Early and Bracket and Nurse McCall to join them. All three men were staying at Johnny’s apartment (everyone who had a house had sold it) and they had just come off of a two day shift.
Stanley and Roy had gotten used to Johnny’s nightmares. He had them nearly every night and as time had gone on and they had gotten closer to the looming disaster they were preparing for, he had started having them several times a night. Tonight was no exception, except that this time when Johnny had woken them up around dawn he told them to start packing.
“It’s time for us to go?” Roy asked as he got dressed.
Johnny nodded, “We have to be out of LA by dawn tomorrow.”
“How are we going to get Brackett, Early and Dixie out to the reservation then?” Stanley asked as he folded up his bedding.
“They’re all going to be at Dixie’s place tonight. They’re going there right after they get off shift at the hospital. We’ll pick them up there.” Johnny picked up his bedroll and slung it over his shoulders before heading for the front door.
“Do you ever notice that he never says exactly how it is we’re going to persuade them to come with us?” Stanley asked. He had a very bad feeling about it.
“Yeah, but I think that’s more because he’s going to have to do something that he doesn’t want to,” Roy said quietly. He and Johnny had been having some long talks about the traditions of Johnny’s nation and tribe after helping an abused woman and her unborn child escape from her husband by sending her to the reservation. He had a fairly good guess of what was going to happen tonight and felt that Stanley should be warned. “Cap, the tribe does still practice kidnapping, remember? Not often, and only under certain circumstances but I’m afraid we might have to force them to go along with us.”
Stanley shook his head; that was something he didn’t want to do. He liked both doctors and Dixie had always been kind to his men whenever one was in the hospital. But he had managed to get more out of Johnny about his visions as time had gone on. He knew now just how bad things were going to be. It wasn’t that they were going to be leaving LA to a disaster and the aftermath that normally goes with one. If Johnny was right about the timing, and Stanley had never known him to be wrong about his visions, not once in all the years he had known the young man, then by the end of the next 48 hours there wouldn’t be an LA any longer. From what Johnny had said, Stanley thought that LA might be taking a direct hit with a nuke.
Johnny had insisted that he really wasn’t sure, but Stanley wasn’t taking any chances. Now was the time to put into effect his back up plan. While Roy and Johnny loaded up the cargo van that was their getaway vehicle, Stanley made phone calls to everyone that he knew and told them everything from ordering them to go to another city in another state for an exchange program to he needed them to go and check up on someone they both knew out of the area and every excuse he could think of in between. He made sure that where he was sending them was far enough away that if LA did get a direct hit that they should survive.
Once he was done, he handed the phone to Roy and had him do the same thing. He wasn’t surprised to find out that Roy had already had a list of excuses already made up. Then he joined Johnny in loading up the van and hitching up the small trailer they’d be towing. By the time Roy was finished, it was noon and the van was loaded. “Hey partner, do you need to make any calls?” Roy asked as they were making one last sweep of the apartment.
“Nope, everyone I know has already gotten the warning. If they don’t believe me, telling them now won’t make a bit of difference. Besides,” he threw his partner a cheeky grin, “Most of our friends are mutual and you guys already did the hard work for me!” Roy laughed and followed him out the front door. He didn’t bother to lock it. If anyone wanted to break in and steal something they were welcome to whatever they could find. They weren’t coming back.
While Stanley drove them to the grocery store so that they could get supplies for their trip, Roy and Johnny were turning their bedding into a nest in the back. “Hey Cap, head for the Abe’s Grocery. They’ll have everything we need.” He made sure that the floor was well padded as he muttered, “including a great big knife.”
“No Roy, I’ll do it,” Johnny said as he gripped his partner and heart brother’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t have to carry that. I’m the one who picked them. It’s my responsibility.” Roy could see the sad look in Johnny’s eyes as well as the determination. No matter what it took, he’d make sure that his family and friends were safe.
‘Roy was right,’ Johnny thought as he helped load up the van with water and food while Roy loaded the trailer with gas cans and camp stove fuel. ‘Using a knife would be easier than a gun because no one would believe that he’d shoot someone one. They knew him too well to ever believe that he would ever deliberately harm someone. With a knife however, he could draw enough blood to make them think that he was serious without harming Dixie. He hated the thought of hurting her, but there was no way that even a knife to the throat would intimidate either of the doctors. But they were honorable enough men that they wouldn’t do anything that would result in Dixie being hurt.
After they finished loading they went and had lunch. Both Stanley and Roy noticed that Johnny couldn’t seem to eat but neither was surprised. As gentle a person as Johnny was, this had to be killing him but there was no other way that they could see to get Brackett or Early out of town. Neither one believed in visions or premonitions, and would want rock solid evidence before moving an inch, Brackett in particular. Heck, the man hadn’t even wanted paramedics in the first place until Roy and Johnny had convinced him otherwise through their hard work and dedication.
While Stanley was getting Johnny into the van, Roy snuck back and picked up some food to go. Johnny would need to eat and this way they would be prepared for when he actually could. They were all silent as they made their way over to Dixie’s apartment building. They had several hours to wait and there really wasn’t much they wanted to do.
Time passed slowly. Stanley read while Roy played solitaire and Johnny did some sort of deep breathing thing. Stanley wasn’t too sure just what it was but he did his best not to disturb him. Johnny had the hardest part in all of this. He had spent almost all of the last six years preparing for the next few days. He had experienced the prophetic dreams telling him what was coming for years, each one getting more and more intense as time when on. And now he was going to have to kidnap friends of his.
And he wasn’t going to be able to do it the way he had Chet either. No, this wasn’t going to be a prank. Johnny was going to have to actually threaten someone, probably Dixie. He only wished that there was something more that he and Roy could do. He glanced at his watch and Roy (who was sitting beside him in the front) said without looking at him, “They’ll be here in about another half an hour give or take. I already told Dixie we’d be there in forty five minutes.”
“You called Nurse McCall?” Stanley asked shocked.
“No, I talked to her at Rampart. I said that we needed to stop in and talk to her for a few minutes.” He shrugged. “We needed to know when she would be home. It was pure luck that she was having a dinner party with Early and Bracket.”
Stanley nodded. Forty five minutes and then they would commit a felony to save their friends lives. He prayed to God that Johnny was right.
It was shockingly easy. Dixie was expecting them so when they knocked on her door she let them in and got the shock of her life when, after she had turned around to lead them into her apartment, she found a knife at her throat and Johnny’s arms around her. When Johnny nudged her further into the apartment so that Early and Brackett could see her, they had a surprise as well. Apparently this dinner was a double date and Joe Early had brought someone with him.
Roy was actually glad to see that Dr. Early had brought his girlfriend along tonight. It had been common gossip for a while now that he had a girlfriend but he had been keeping her name quiet. That meant that Roy and Johnny hadn’t known who she was so that they could bring her along. Now they didn’t have to worry about that. What they did have to worry about was Dr. Brackett. He had jumped up when he had seen Dixie with a knife at her throat and Roy could tell that his very famous temper was about to explode.
“You need to come with us right now,” Stanley said, using his best ‘I’m in charge and you will do what I say’ voice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!?” Dr. Brackett yelled as he started forward. He instantly stopped when he saw that Johnny’s knife had drawn blood. It wasn’t much, in fact if it hadn’t been Dixie who was the one bleeding he would have realized that the injury wasn’t even deep enough to really qualify as a scratch.
Joe Early noticed. Whatever was going on it looked like they didn’t want to hurt them, but they would as much as they had to too convince them to do whatever it was that had brought them here. “We need to do as they say Kelly. Emily, come here,” he said. He put his arm around his fiancé and escorted her to the door.
Brackett stood still in silent frustration before jerking his head and following Joe and Emily. 'What could have driven these three hose jockeys to do this? We may not be best friends but never thought that Roy or Johnny would do something like this,' he thought.
Roy led the way down to the parking garage where the van was parked. They were lucky and did not run into anyone in the halls. When they reached the van, Roy opened the side door and waited for the doctors to get in. Then he turned, grabbed two duffle bags and ran back up to Dixie's apartment. He had been to Dixie's often enough with his wife to know what Dixie's favorite things were. Moving as quickly as he could he packed her books and mementoes, thankful that she had more than a few medical reference books among them. He made sure that the fragile items were wrapped in some of her clothing so that they wouldn't break. Then he went to her coat closet to get as many of her coats as he could carry. When he saw the obviously packed bag on the floor of the closet he grabbed it as well. No matter what was in it that would be one less thing that Dixie would lose.
By the time he staggered back down to the van, Stanley had duct taped the doctors' arms and legs together and was finishing the job on the ladies. Roy handed Johnny the three bags and Dixie's two coats to Johnny through the driver's side door. Then he got in and started the van. They didn't have time to waste. They had to be out of LA and as far away as they could get by dawn.
Johnny and Stanley were climbing around in the back of the van, setting up the last of the lead lined blankets over the side door. They were also trying to get everyone settled down into the nest that Roy and Johnny had put together so that their 'hostages' would be as comfortable as possible on this trip. They weren't going to stop unless they absolutely had too.
They spent the night mostly in silence, due to the fact that four out of the seven were gagged. Roy and Johnny made frequent checks to make sure that no one was getting too dehydrated or that their bonds were causing any injuries. Kelly and Joe both tried to talk to the paramedics every time their gags were removed as they were both more familiar with them than they were with Captain Stanley. None the less, they couldn't get any answers out of the men. Stanley and Roy only spoke to each other when consulting the map or making fuel stops. They both dreaded what the morning would bring. Johnny spoke to no one, too uptight and stressed to make small talk. This was the worst rescue he'd ever had to take part in.
Dawn came sixteen hours after leaving Dixie's apartment and found them in Grand Junction, Colorado just leaving the city. Stanley was driving. Although they were doing their best to avoid any military bases and large cities, Stanley wanted to be close enough to get a radio station that would be likely to carry the news that they feared. Just as the sun was high enough to be seen in LA; Johnny fell over with a cry of pain.
"I gotcha Junior," Roy said as he wrapped his arms around Johnny. They had been in the middle of checking their 'hostages' and Brackett and Dixie were both ungagged.
Johnny muttered something in Lakota and Dixie tried to translate it. "Father, blood, Mother, hurt?" She shook her head as the few words strained what little Lakota she knew. Whenever Johnny woke from anesthesia he often spoke in Lakota for a short time before he fully came to consciousness. The words that he was saying now made much less sense now than they did then.
"Father Sky is bleeding, Mother Earth is hurt," Roy said quietly. He knew that Johnny was somehow actually feeling the impact of the bomb.
"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Brackett demanded. He wasn't surprised that no one answered him. What did surprise him was that Stanley immediately reached over and turned on the radio. What he heard over the radio shocked him almost as much as the sight of Johnny holding Dixie at knife point yesterday had.
From the radio in the front of the van came first the sounds of a popular country western song. It was soon interrupted however, by the sound of a disk jockey crying. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm sorry, so sorry to have to tell you this. But," here the listeners could actually hear the d-jay gasping for enough composure to complete his message, "ten minutes ago a nuclear explosion wiped out LA. We have been attacked. From where I am in I can see, see missiles launching from the nearby military base. We are at war."
Stanley pulled the van over and turned off the engine. He crawled into the back and removed the duct tape from around the two couple's arms and legs. "How did you know?" Brackett asked, stunned.
"Johnny," Dixie said, putting together clues that she had seen for the last few years but hadn't understood. "He knew this was coming, didn't he?"
Stanley nodded. "He's been helping us get ready for this for a long time now."
"Well, he's not going to be able to help anyone right now," Roy said as he held his partner. "If I knew how to knock him out safely I'd do it. He's in a lot of pain but I don't know how much of it is physical and how much is his gift."
Through out the day the small group made its way towards the Rez, avoiding the cities and the panic. And there was panic as the missiles flew back and forth. They picked up fewer and fewer radio stations as they drove. They weren't sure this was due to the route they were taking or to the fall out or to the stations simply not existing any longer. This was where the trailer and its contents came in. Although they stopped to get gas where they could, the main part of their fuel came from the gas cans in the trailer.
It took them another fifteen hours, making the trip thirty one hours total, to get to the Rez. By that time the damage done to the world, and to those in it, was done. If Johnny hadn't recovered enough to drive, and they hadn't ditched the trailer when the gas had run low, they never would have made it through the snow that began to fall. As it was, they covered the last few miles crawling through the blizzard that was falling in the height of summertime until they reached the closest parking area to the beginning of the cave system where Johnny's tribe had taken shelter.
After wrapping up in the blankets they had used to shield themselves from any fallout, they made their way to the caves. As they entered the first cave and shed the blankets they were swarmed by their friends and family. It wasn't until everyone else had been sorted out that Grandfather Gage stepped forward. "You have done the will of the Great Spirit well, Johnny. Welcome home." At that Johnny was swarmed as everyone tried to hug him at once. He had been missed.
The End