Free The Jefferson Allegiance by Bob Mayer

checked a notepad. “It was sent at eighteen-forty-four hours. Took you a while to ‘come quick’ since I met you at twenty-forty-eight.”
    “If you check my phone, you’ll also see I didn’t receive the text message until exactly two hours after it was sent, at twenty-forty-four.”
    “Why the delay?” Burns asked.
    Ducharme shrugged. “I don’t know.” But a disturbing thought wormed its way into the back of his mind.
    “What does ‘brings pacs’ mean?” Burns asked.
    The worm crawled into Ducharme’s frontal lobe. “The message is a repeat of one that was sent a long time ago.”
    Burns waited, and then tapped the table top with the handle of the switchblade. “Explain.”
    “It’s from the last written order George Armstrong Custer gave at the Battle of Little Big Horn,” Ducharme said. “He dictated it to his adjutant who gave it to Trumpeter Martin to carry to Major Benteen. It said: ‘ Benteen, Come on. Big Village, be quick, bring packs. P.S. bring p-a-c-s.’ ”
    A slight smile graced Burns’s lips. “’Come on, boys, we got them on the run?’”
    “That’s a Western myth,” Ducharme said. “No one knows what Custer said after he sent Martin off with that message, because every man with him died. People think the Seventh Cavalry was wiped out, but almost half of it survived under Reno and Benteen. The most Medal of Honors ever awarded for a single battle in our history were given to troopers under their command for their actions the night after the massacre when men volunteered to crawl under fire from the hill they were making their stand on to retrieve water from the Little Big Horn for their wounded comrades.”
    “You sound defensive of Custer,” Burns said.
    Ducharme’s voice was sharp. “I served in thesecond Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the first Cavalry Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I’m proud of the lineage of the unit and the men who served with me.”
    “So they gave out a lot of medals to put spin on a massacre.”
    Ducharme bristled. “They gave out a lot of medals to soldiers who risked their lives to save other soldiers. The worst of times can bring out the bravest in people.”
    “The military and medals.” Burns shook his head.
    Ducharme realized he was being baited and ignored it, already having started to slide into Burns’s pit.
    His barb not being taken, Burns pressed on. “Why would LaGrange send you such a message?”
    Ducharme sat back in the seat, feeling a tiredness that went beyond the physical weariness creeping into his muscles. “General LaGrange was—“ he closed his eyes for a moment in pain. “General LaGrange was an expert on military history, so he specifically picked Little Big Horn and Custer. Sending a message from Custer means he felt there was a good chance he was doomed. I believe the text of the message explains the time lag on the text message. General LaGrange set his phone to send two hours after he wrote it. When he knew, like what happened to Custer and his message to Major Benteen, it would be too late.”
    Burns was staring at him strangely. “That doesn’t make sense if he wanted your help.”
    “I think he wanted to face whatever it was by himself,” Ducharme said. “Then he wanted to meet me if he survived—or if killed, for me to find him and—”
    Burns leaned forward. “And what?”
    Ducharme fell back into silence.
    “This is my case,” Burns said. “You’re not overseas any more.”
    “Right.”
    “Things didn’t work out too well for your uncle,” Burns said. He cut another piece off the apple.
    “They didn’t for Custer either,” Ducharme said.
    “And LaGrange knew that.”
    “Yes.”
    “Want a piece?” Burns offered a slice on the point of the switchblade.
    “No.”
    Burns popped it in his mouth and chewed loudly. It was irritating, which was exactly why Burns was doing it.
    “Both men were tortured before being killed,” Burns said.
    Ducharme looked down at