Eden's Hammer - By Lloyd Tackitt Page 0,22

also allowing him to have a small, dim light inside without showing through the tent walls. Inside, the radio operator had set up the receiver and batteries that had been carried by the lowest rank men. A temporary antenna had been installed in a nearby tree. The radio was up and running. Rex had told the operator, “Focus on the Colorado and Fort Brazos signals. I want to know all traffic that moves between them. When I get the information I want, I’ll send you and the equipment back to your family.” He now stretched out on his bunk, staring at the tent’s ceiling with unblinking eyes, seeing only images of Adrian suffering.

JANUARY 21, EARLY MORNING

Rex watched as the men began moving into a north-south line. They were heading west by north with four hundred and fifty miles of country to cross. Some of this land would be either swamp or pine forest until they reached the Trinity River in Texas. After that, it would be rolling plains. They would use roads only where necessary to cross difficult terrain. Rex wanted the men spread out to make as much “noise” as possible. His orders to burn every house along the way had been supplemented with another order: to allow some of the women and children to escape. He didn’t explain that order to his men, knowing they would wonder but obey—after the women had been thoroughly raped, of course. He hadn’t forbidden that. Rex wanted the news of his men’s travel to spread far and wide and fast. When the time was right, he would step up his plan by planting the idea that the raiders were coming toward Fort Brazos, but not why. Using runners, he would keep the men in line in fairly good order.

By midafternoon, Rex could see plumes of smoke on both sides of his position as his men torched every building they came to. Burning the houses not only signaled their position, but also let everyone in the area know in which direction they were moving. It would take a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks, but it would soon be common knowledge. He had considered that other villages or small towns might send out men to attack, to stop them from reaching their villages and homes. He wasn’t expecting any serious resistance, but if any were encountered, he would simply move around it and continue his line. His goal was Fort Brazos, not the people in between.

They marched all that day, picking up less food than Rex had expected. They were primarily coming across single farms and ranches with one or two defenders at most. He hadn’t realized how poor the pickings out here were. These people were growing and raising their own food, not dependent on outside help, but having a hard time of it. Their independence and self-sufficiency was less than he had expected. His men were still happy with the results; they might not get fat until they reached his promised Shangri-La, but they were getting enough. Good, that’ll keep them moving forward until it’s too late to turn back, he thought. Once they were into the far side of East Texas, the pickings would be even slimmer as the farms became farther apart, making Fort Brazos all the more desirable to them.

They had been on the move for a little over a week, leaving death and destruction behind. Rex was continuing the scorched earth policy while allowing enough survivors to escape to make sure everyone knew about their line of march. The radio reports had been infrequent, but from the ones they had, he gathered that Adrian was still at war with the cannibals. He couldn’t recharge the car batteries, but they were picking up plenty of them as they went. Every night before Rex went to sleep, he said what almost amounted to a prayer: “Please don’t let Adrian get killed.” Rex’s plans would be ruined if that happened.

Rex visited a different group every night. He observed the men’s morale and found it typically good. These men were doing what they liked best: raping and pillaging and destroying. The body count they were leaving behind had crossed two hundred. Rex made sure his men counted the dead—he wanted to know how many every day. Rex himself had accounted for more than twenty. Each killed with a slashed throat as his eyes drank in the sight of squirting arterial blood. He had never been so relaxed. He was