6 Miles With Courage (12 page)

The stranger turned from looking at the cub and looked at the cluster of men whose fear now seemed to be
directed at him. They were fidgety. He spoke from the center of the creek—leveling his rifle—and he seemed to be speaking to the man at the end of the shackles farthest from the tree.

“What’s the matter Obadiah? Afraid of a bear cub now are we?”

“Jebediah you know what kind of trouble a bear cub can bring
my brother,”
said Obadiah the end captive.

Ryan was trying to take it all in as fast as he could because he knew that any second the stranger w
ould come back. Ryan was thinking to himself,
so
Jebediah was the strangers
name
and he has a brother named
Obadiah.
Who are these people?

And they
too were dressed in shabby grey clothes that were nowhere
near
as clean as Jebediah’s. And they were physically in bad shape with filthy bruised and blacked faces. The other three never said a word as they huddled in the shadow of the tree like one three-headed man. The whole sight was surreal to Ryan as he continued to watch and listen through a squinted gaze.

Obadiah spoke out, “Jebediah, I should have smothered you in your crib
! And I would have, had I only known what you would have turned out to be.”

“O-be,” Jebediah sometimes called his brother that, “I’m not the deserter, you are! You and the scum you keep company with,” Jebediah must have been talking about the other three because they nervously started to shuffle upon hearing his words and seeing his rifle leveled at the
waist as he stood a mere 15 feet away in the cool rushing waters of the creek.

“But it really
doesn’t matter now does it O-be? Because I’m going to get $80 dollars for the lot of you
and
a bonus of $20 for the scout I picked up this morning by the river, Ha!” Jebediah said sarcastically. Of course he was referring to Ryan and the others started to crane their necks as they looked across the creek in Ryan’s direction.

“That gives me five
people and a full set of shackles for $100, God! I mean Gosh! I like round numbers don’t you O-be?” Jebediah came close to using the lord’s name in vain just to irk his brother. They came from a Christian home and were named after Bible characters and were taught not to cuss.

Ryan looking across the creek beyond
Jebediah realized that the end shackle (the one attached to the tree) was for him. He wanted to scream out—
guys,
enough is enough already my dad is hurt. I need help!
But the sheer craziness of what was playing out in front of him said
keep your mouth
shut
.

Then the cub that was silent for the last minute or
so began to bleat like a goat as if it were hurt. Jebediah turned his head towards the cub but kept his rifle pointed in the direction of the men. The men shuffled under the tree with uneasiness. They pulled on their chains while Jebediah was distracted by the cub. Nobody in their right mind would want to be chained to a tree between a cub and its mother.

“Shut that cub up Jebediah, or turn us loose!” Obadiah demanded, but Jebediah paid him no mind.

“Yea, shut that cub up,” chimed in one of the others.

“How about I just shut you up O-be?” was Jebediah’s answer.

With the cub bleating and Jebediah looking upstream, his rifle pointing at the men, and with Ryan having his eyes squinted, no one could have guessed what was about to happen next.

As it is
, fate can be cruel sometimes and sometimes generous. It was about to be
both
. In the case of the “Sykes” brothers it would be on the cruel side, but for the other men the generous.

Just below the surface of
the water in the flowing creek a submerged log was on the move. It wasn’t moving very fast but then it didn’t have to because it carried with it a lot of energy. Like a slow moving freight train it plowed into the back of Jebediah’s leg buckling his knee. This caused him to accidently squeeze the trigger on his rifle. There was a click then a thunderous explosion as the black powder rifle shot off a tremendous cloud of gun smoke.

The entire south bank was obscured by smoke as the log slid by Jebediah unnoticed
by anyone else. Then there came a sickening outcry from one of the men in irons.

“Oh my God,” someone cried,
“Jebediah murdered his brother! He murdered his brother! Oh my God!” said the voice through the smoke.

Jebediah’s rifle fell from his hand
s and splashed into the creek. Walking stiff-legged, fighting the resistance of the water, he walked as fast as he could. The cloud of gun smoke was fading away as Ryan opened his eyes and arose to his feet. He began trudging through the water towards the other side of the creek and the Sykes brothers.

Jebediah
upon reaching his brother bent down and cradled his limp body into his arms. He brushed his brother’s hair back and it revealed a hole dripping blood from between his brother’s eyes.

He continued to brush his hair with a trembling hand and
a sobbing cry until his hand reached the back of Obadiah’s head where he quickly jerked it back. It was stained crimson red.

Startled he let the lifeless body of his brother fall from his grasp as he raised his hand high towards heaven
and the darkening sky above. On bended knee he let out a guttural scream.

“No!”

All was silent except for his sobbing.

“No!”

The cry echoed throughout the river basin.

Ryan approached
Jebediah from behind. The giant of a man didn’t seem so big anymore—down on his knees crying in the dirt. The red hand being raised high with fingers curled in agony pricked Ryan’s heart as it never had been pricked before. Ryan gently placed his hand on Jebediah’s shoulder.

The cruel hand of fate had struck the Sykes brothers but it wasn’t over yet. Things were about to get
worse… much worse.

Then the bear cub began to bleat like a goat.
Bah! Bah!
The cub sounded-off while it paced back and forth along the creek bed. It kept looking towards Ryan and the men. Ryan knew then that they were indeed between the cub and its mother. Ryan looked downstream to where the creek made a sharp bend to the right some fifty yards away. The dark sky from the approaching rain made it hard to see. Ryan squinted but there was nothing to be seen.

“The
keys man, give us the keys,” said one of the chained men to Ryan with an outstretched hand, pointing and shaking his index finger towards a ring of keys on Jebediah’s belt. Jebediah picked up his brother and holding him close to his breast sobbed deeply.

“O-be James, O-be James, O-be James,”
he said through his sobs, it was the name their father would call out when he demanded Obadiah’s attention. But there would be no getting Obadiah’s attention—he was
dead!

“I said give us the keys man! Before that sow turns the corner!

Ryan, reaching down, unclipped the key ring from Jebediah’s belt unnoticed and handed the keys to the first man chained next to Obadiah’s body. One by one they unlocked themselves and the three of them ran off splashing down the creek directly towards the cub. It was the safest place to run; away from the mother should she approach. The cub moved aside and let the men pass. They disappeared around a bend, mumbling something about Jebediah murdering his brother as they ran.

Jebediah paid them no mind
as they were leaving. He continued sobbing as he holds his brother’s body close. Ryan could not help but notice how truly sorry he was. It reminded Ryan of what his father would say to him and his brother when they were playing rough, “It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.”

Bah! Bah!
The cub started in again. Then suddenly it stopped with its head raised high and it was looking right at Ryan, or was it looking past him? Ryan turned to see a ghastly sight.

Standing silently in the middle of the creek
, at the darkness of the bend stood the Sow. Ryan was not directly in its line of site as he and Jebediah were nearer the south bank. Ryan slowly lowered to a squat next to the sobbing Jebediah who even up till now had no idea that Ryan was next to him, comforting him.

“Jebediah,”
Ryan whispered,
“Jebediah we have to step away from the creek.”
Ryan had to shake him to get him to look at him.
“Jebediah!” listen to me!

Jebediah looked at Ryan with the eyes of a man
who had no soul. His blackened face was washed clean around the eyes from his tears. He was breathing heavy through his clenched teeth. Snot ran down his beard. It was truly a face of anguish. He was looking right through Ryan and Ryan knew it.

Splash!
Splash!
Then a loud snort as the four hundred pound sow began sniffing the air for what had alarmed her cub. Jebediah heard the snort and the splash, and it changed his demeanor. His eyes went to looking crazy-like and his face put on a weird grin. Ryan didn’t know what to expect!

Jebediah slowly arose to his feet and began walking backwards
into
the creek! His face never changed its crazy expression as he continued to look towards Ryan.

“Jebediah get back here!”
Ryan whispered, but it was too late the sow caught sight of him and stood straight up on her hind legs, the top of her head reaching seven feet into the air.

Jebediah backed up
into the middle of the creek and reaching into his waistband pulled out a long bayonet. And without ever taking his eyes off of Ryan pointed the bayonet at the sow and said, “That Sow
killed
my brother!”

“No-no Jebediah you listen to me! You need to come back here NOW!
I need to get to the hard-road! I need your help! That Sow did not kill your brother! It had to have been an accident!”   Ryan whispered loudly.

“No
! That
Sow
killed my
brother!
Didn’t you hear me boy!”

And with that Jebediah turned to face the standing
bear.

Ryan glanced down looking for something to defend himself
with. He saw a bayonet in Obadiah’s waistband and pulling it out, slid a little farther into the trees of the creek bank. He took cover behind the tree that had the shackles. He no sooner ducked when he heard the sow coming down the creek.

“My God,”
Ryan said with a whisper as he peeked out. The Sow was charging down the creek like a truck driving down a flooded street. Water was spraying-out from both sides with every gallop. She was blowing and snorting as the water danced off of her thick fur. Jebediah had but five seconds.

He readied himself in a low stance with an out stretched bayonet.
The bear came to a sudden stop at Jebediah’s feet and pounded both her paws into the creek like she would have done if it were dry ground.

This splash
had caught him off guard but he wiped the water away from his face quickly, and watched as the bear rose up to a towering height just a mere three feet away. She let out a deafening roar as her face rippled across her jaws, momentarily exposing all of her teeth in a ghastly grimace. This would have scared a lesser man but it only made Jebediah mad, ticked him off actually.

He lunged forward
, and with a stabbing motion managed to get to her chest three times before she knew what hit her. But with her wet fur, thick skin and layers of fat, it amounted to nothing more than a couple of pokes to the ribs making
her
all the angrier.

Rising up and walking forward she paid no mind to the poking
. She reached out with a huge paw with hooked claws and swatted the bayonet out of Jebediah’s hand,
breaking
his arm at the elbow.

Jebediah was frantically reaching down into the creek in search of the bayonet with his good arm as his wounded arm dangled grotesquely.

Then the bear pounced with both paws crumpling Jebediah like a paper cup into the creek where the water cutoff his voice in
mid-cry—
the
battle cry of a soldier.

Then there
came an upwelling of bubbles and blood not unlike a boiling caldron. The bear stood there holding him down. She knew what she was doing, she was drowning him and not until his hat floated to the surface did she step off. Then she walked down the middle of the creek to her cub where they licked each other in a show of affection.

Jebediah’s body did not surface.
Like the submerged log that started this whole mess it drifted away unseen. Ryan was once again alone with nothing but his courage to carry him forward.

When the Sow reached her cub Ryan collapsed at the base of the tree in a heap, taking in huge gulps of air he began breathing again. In an effort to remain silent he had held his breath. Now with his back against the tree and looking up at the spinning canopy he began to hyperventilate, and he grew dizzy, and he began hallucinating.

One treetop looked like the bear
and another looked like Jebediah, and they were chasing each other as they spun around and around. Only when his breathing returned to normal did the dizziness and hallucination stop. Then he broke out in uncontrollable weeping.

He cried for Jebediah and he cried for Obadiah. He cried for his father and for the predicament that his father was in. He cried for the violence that he had just witnessed
, for he had never seen such gore, except in a movie. He never cried for himself however, and when he realized this, when he realized that he was not crying for Ryan, well that’s when he stopped.

Ryan had a good and well deserved cry
, but now he knew it was time to get moving again as time
so
precious to his father’s rescue was now slipping away.

Wiping his eyes he stood up
, and after briefly looking the bayonet over he slid it into his waistband. Taking the compass out of his pocket reminded him of the raft and the other supplies like the machete, GPS unit, water and snacks. He looked back over his shoulder and then quickly shrugged off any idea about going back for them. It was just too risky and the only thing he really needed was the compass. He held the compass up and took to a bearing of S20°W. With only one half mile to go until he reached the uplands, he took his first steps to finishing the journey through the swamp.

“Ah, the uplands,” Ryan said
. He was thinking how nice it was going to be once he left the dismal swamp. But sometimes things are not exactly as we foresee them as was the case with Ryan. The swamp grew more dismal as the canopy was filtering-out the fading light from the approaching storm. Like Bob Mallory, Ryan was in for a long drizzly day.

A
s Ryan began to move through the swamp there was a noticeable difference, an uplifting and encouraging difference. Gone were the awkward movements of an adolescent stumbling through the swamp. Instead they were replaced by the skillful movements of a young man who knew what it took to walk through a swamp. He quickly put into practice what he had learned while riding over Jebediah’s shoulder.

He stepped from fern
-tuft to fern-tuft thereby staying out of the deep water. He stepped so silently that the great horned owl sleeping above never woke up! He dodged the spider webs. He ate berries and drank the moisture gathered into small puddles on the leaves of the swamp plants. He navigated around the “hat floaters” and even cautiously shooed away poisonous water moccasins with the bayonet as they lay atop the fern tufts.

He heard the woodpecker as it hammered on a hollow tree in the distance but he was not to be fooled again. He tucked his pants into his socks as did Jebediah, thus keeping out the leaches. He stayed focused, he was methodical
, and he was making good time.

In fact it seemed that the only thing wrong with his new found skills is that he found
them late in the game. He sure could have used them in the first two and a half miles of the swamp. Now with just a half a mile of swamp left, and moving at this rate, he should reach the uplands in forty-five minutes tops.

Twenty minutes into the journey Ryan came to a small tributary to Bear Creek. It was a muddy little stream no
wider than four feet. But before he could step across an odd site on the far side caught Ryan’s attention and he froze.

The bloated carcass of
a deer lies at the water’s edge with its four legs up in the air. Its head (if it had one) would have been under the water. Lying next to the fawn perpendicular to the stream bank was an
alligator
no less than ten feet in length! The scene looked surreal and out of place, almost fake or staged.

Here Ryan was, far from any large body of water and right in front of hi
m no more than eight feet away was this large alligator and what was left of its breakfast. Not really sure what puzzled him more—the deer or the alligator—he looked them both over before deciding which way to move.

There was definitely a sign of a struggle as the vegetation was disturbed around the deer.
The alligators hide was dried out from being out of the water revealing many battle scars, and the general appearance was that of a pasty color, a cross between sun-dried leather and concrete was its texture. It looked down-right fake and this was compounded by the fact that it was motionless. One could get lulled into a feeling of false security if not careful.

The huge creature had big fat jowls hanging off each side of its neck
. This gave the appearance that it was well fed. It had tiny beady little eyes close together high atop its head and much to Ryan’s relief they were closed. 

Even Ryan knew that you cannot outrun an alligator. After coming to the conclusion that the creature had recently had a meal and was sleeping
. He stepped slowly backwards.

Ryan skirted the alligator
by fifty-feet before crossing the muddy little stream to get back on course. Chills ran up his spine and he shuddered at the thought of being eaten by the alligator. He picked up the pace sensing the end of the swamp. The water was getting shallow and there was an earthen scent to the air. It was a scent he had not experienced since the crash. He was on cruise-control and moving effortlessly, but his mind could not shed the thought of the alligator and the fate of the deer. His thoughts drifted.

The deer was like Ryan, a humble soul venturing into the swamp from the uplands. He pauses to take a drink of cool water from the first little stream he finds. The deer lowers his head and begins to eagerly lap unaware of the danger just inches
away. The alligator has chosen his position well. He has grown to an enormous length and weight over the years as the “gatekeeper” to the swamp. Like a giant concrete figure coming to life the alligator merely turns his head and with its long rows of sharp teeth, snaps off the head of his latest victim. With a bloody grimace he swallows it and returns to his sleep.

Many hours pass, the deer bloats
, his legs stick up into the air and then along comes Ryan, stumbling upon the scene. If his timing was off he would have joined the growing pile of bones belonging to the gatekeeper’s victims.

WHOOSH!  The red-tailed hawk banking through the trees
had just missed Ryan’s head, and it startled him, breaking him of his gruesome thoughts. Looking up he had come to the end.
The end of the swamp!

Three of the
four miles that it would take to reach Forest Road 77 were behind him. You would think that this would call for some kind of a light hearted celebration, like a cheer or a “Yahoo” or
something
of that nature.

Ryan stood staring with his mouth agape! For what lies in front of him was not
an open vista of pine trees and sprawling palmetto as one would expect upon reaching the uplands. No, what lay in front of Ryan was a
dead-end!