6 Miles With Courage (4 page)

Ring-ring, ring-ring, ring
— “Sykes surveying and mapping Judy speaking.” Rob has an elaborate home office for his business. He has a unique ring so his wife knows when it’s a business call.

“Hello Mrs.
‘
S’
this is Brent how are you doing today?”

“I’m fine Brent
, how’s the family?”

“Good,
I’m sorry I didn’t mean to call on the business line but I was wondering if you heard from Ryan. I mean is he going to be on time?”

“What do you mean
, on time for what?”

“Well we were going to catch a movie, and then play some
late-night poker to celebrate his eighteenth birthday tomorrow—no gambling of course Mrs. ‘
S’
.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t.” She answered playing along
. “What time were you supposed to hook-up Brent?”

“Well
, Ryan said he hoped to be home around five.”

“Five? I don’t see how that could be possible you know his father when
he goes out to ‘scout’ a job. I wouldn’t expect them home till late tonight.”

“Oh, Ok Mrs. S, just have him call me when he gets home. I left a message on his cell phone.”

“Alright then Brent, say hello to your folks—bye.”

“Bye.”

Judy went back to folding clothes and watching home improvement projects on television, but the thought of Ryan having
plans
bothered her. True, it is early yet but there is that gnawing in her stomach. The one she gets when Rob goes out to “scout” a job. She keeps a watchful eye on the clock, yet she knows. She knows all too well about Rob’s overnight excursions. Nothing planned of course, but it has happened three times now.

The first of the overnighters happened when Rob got his truck stuck several miles from the nearest road. It was dusk and it was pouring rain. Judy had Sheriff Bob Mallory go out to look for him. The Sherriff found him in the early morning. Rob was digging his truck out with a shovel—he was fine. He told the Sherriff that he spent the night in the truck
, eating crackers and trying to stay warm. Rob has carried the duffel bag in his truck ever since.

The second time Rob was on his way
back
from scouting a job—it was dusk again—in a motor boat—when the engine quit. Several miles from the boat ramp he decides to crawl under mosquito netting and wait it out till morning—sleeping in the small boat. The duffel bag pays off. But when Sherriff Bob shuts the engine down on his boat, and pulls up alongside of Rob in the morning, he is a little annoyed.

“Rob,” he says, “you’re going to have to stop doing this.”

“I understand Bob
, but it’s all part of the business.” He is a little embarrassed.

“I know you and I are friends, but when it comes
to using the counties resources to track you down, well sooner or later you’re going to have to foot the bill.” He had a no-nonsense look in his eye as he turned the key restarting his boat.

“Talk to your wife Rob. Let’s get her to wait 24 hours next time, Ok?”

“Will do Bob.” He waved sheepishly as the Sherriff motored away into the morning fog with Rob in tow.

The
third
time was the worst. Rob simply left the cab light on and killed the truck battery. It was dusk. He was many miles from the nearest road, and with the comforts of the duffel bag he decided to spend the night in the truck cab. He was sleeping soundly, that is until the glaring spot light and deafening noise of the helicopter woke him up.

“
Rob Sykes?
Rob Sykes if that is you please wave your hand out the truck window,” said the blaring voice from the loud-speaker attached to the helicopter. Rob recognized the voice of Bob Mallory and rolled down the window and waved, again sheepishly.

“I’ll
send a tow truck and you
will
get my bill in the morning Rob,” was the last words he heard as he drifted off to sleep to the fading sound of the helicopter.

“You want me to pay fourteen hundred dollars! Bob don’t you think this
is just a little ridiculous.” Rob was upset when he got the bill, but Bob being a friend was willing to make a deal. After all he did care about him but somebody had to draw the line. Two hours for a helicopter and a pilot does not come cheap.

“I’ll tell you what. You get me a letter down here
instructing me not to come looking for you for at least 24 hours after you’re late coming home from job scouting, and I will tear up that bill. But I am not joking. You get that letter in here and on file.” Sherriff Mallory hung up.

The letter was filed and the concerned parties understood it. Sherriff Bob was not to go looking for Rob until 24 hours after his wife (or a concerned member of his family) should call.

Rob put it to his wife this way. “If it gets dark and I’m not home, don’t send somebody looking for me that night, or even the next day. Wait until
dark
the following day. If I am not home by then, I’m most likely in trouble.” Judy promised to abide.

N
ow however—as she sits folding clothes—her thoughts turn to Ryan’s plans. She wants to put a bug in Sherriff Mallory’s ear
now
just in case. She knows that technically Rob is not missing or even late. She knows that if she has to make “the call”, it will have to wait 24 hours. She makes a plan to call Bob now with some small talk and perhaps hint that if Rob doesn’t show up tonight, being that it’s Ryan’s birthday, he could be in trouble. She makes the call, but what she doesn’t know, is that Rob has already informed Bob that he would be out scouting today.

“Good
afternoon Sherriff Bob Mallory speaking.”

“Good
afternoon Bob, its Judy, how are you today?” she says with exaggerated cheerfulness—a dead giveaway.

“Fine Judy, just fine, little early to be calling wouldn’t you say?”
without raising his pencil from his crossword puzzle, he calls her out.

But it doesn’t faze her, she get right into it.

“You know its Ryan’s birthday tomorrow,” she said.

“Yes I know Judy. Rob told me that he and Ryan were going job
scouting today. How long has it been since Rob scouted a job? I’d say six or eight months, wouldn’t you,” he said with the intent on jogging her memory back to the letter. She caught on.                                                       

“Well I don’t expect them to be too late tonight.” There, she dropped the bug in his ear.

He puts his pencil down and sits back in his chair to set the record straight.

“Well than if he
is
—late that is—that means we should be getting the helicopter in the air just about this time tomorrow. Isn’t that right Judy?”

“Ah well, yes I guess your right Bob—oh say Bob if you’re not doing anything later tonight
stop on over for some peach cobbler,” she said with a coy voice.

“Right Mrs. Sykes, I will let you know then—bye-bye.”

He quickly ended that conversation. He did not want to get sucked into that situation, sitting over there eating cobbler, watching Judy wring her hands in worry turning the minutes into hours.

There would be no searching
until tomorrow evening. Sheriff Bob Mallory is a very sympathetic man, but at seven hundred dollars an hour for a helicopter he had to consider Rob’s track record and stick with common sense.

However,
Bob does have
special
feelings in his heart for Judy. The three of them have a very unique bond of love and friendship. That’s
altogether
another story. For now, he feels Rob will be just fine.

“Son
, I do it because I love the adventure, the thrill of being outside in the woods and not knowing where the day will take you.” Rob is trying to get Ryan’s mind off the negative by focusing on the positive aspects of surveying. “It’s not a job—”

“It’s an adventure, man we are just full of clichés today,” Ryan said chuckling. His dad did also.

“Ok, so you went about a tenth of a mile in, what, say 15 minutes. That’s good! Now you need to get back out there and start where you left off.” Rob said, testing the waters of Ryan’s resolve.

Ryan is silent.

His dad starts in again, “You get out there, it’s what, three-thirty, and you march through the cypress and gum trees for an hour and a half to “no-name” creek, you cross it, 30 more minutes of swamp and you will come to a little strip of land on the banks of the Oklawaha River. You make camp there where it should be safe to spend the night. You know you won’t be able to sleep, so you build a nice big fire. You spray yourself down with bug spray and you walk around the fire all night thinking about the hero’s welcome you’re going to get tomorrow on your eighteenth birthday.” He pauses. There is no response from Ryan so he continues.

“The sun rises
. You wait 15minutes for a boat, if no boats show, you cross the river.”

Ryan chimes in, “How deep is the river?”

“Well son, it will be shallow on each side but the center you
will
need to swim. You will be in your clothes and shoes, and you will have the backpack so you’re going to need some help. You need to find an old log about your length and place the backpack on top of it. You can then, with one arm draped over the log—swim across.” He pauses, no reaction, so he continues.

“After that
, it’s all downhill, just a half a mile of swamp and one and a half miles of uplands and you’re at Forest Road 77.” He waits for Ryan’s response. 

“Dad,” Ryan says looking out his window, “don’t they say that if you’re lost, you should stay put, and let them come to you?”

“True, but we are not lost, we already went over that, and I know for a
fact
that they will not be looking for us until tomorrow night.” Rob said with a confessing voice.

“What do you
mean
you know for a
fact?”
Ryan caught the tone.

“Because I have been so called
lost
so many times before and each time when they came looking for me I was alright. So I made a deal with the sheriff not to look for me for at least 24 hours.” Rob waited, but it did not take long for Ryan’s reaction.

“Dad
, how
could
you!”

“I know son,
and I know this time my luck has run out. I won’t make it that long I’m
sorry
to say. I kind of sealed my own fate on this one.” he says apologetically.

“You see son—and I knew it all along—you
are
the rescue team.” His voice trails off.

Ryan thinks to himself. So this is it—it really is up to
me!

“Dad, I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t think I can do it
,” he said turning towards his dad.

“Dad what about you, do
you
think I can do this?”

Rob does not answer. Not right away.
He has to be careful with the words he chooses. He knows he has one shot at injecting enough bravery into his son to sustain him through his journey. It will be a 24 hour, six mile journey that will take great courage.

“Ryan, I will never forget the day you were born, and to this day I have not seen a greater look of joy on your mother’s face. Oh, she had that same look for your brother and sister, so don’t get me wrong.” Rob said.

“Mom had a little difficulty breathing during the birth
so she held an oxygen mask to her face.  She was watching the doctor who was prepping you to be placed in her arms for the first time. I saw the unspeakable joy in her eyes as she patiently waited. She takes the mask down and looks at me and says, “Baby Ryan Rob, its baby Ryan!” She put the mask back up to her face and with tears of joy she said, “thank you Lord.”

“Then
the doctor rises up and places you in your mother’s arms for the first—”

R
ob couldn’t go on.

“That’s OK dad, I know what you’re trying to say.” Ryan sa
id.

“One Christmas your mom saved money all year and bought you this red electric powered four wheel drive truck. You remember that don’t you Ryan?”
His dad said excitedly.

“Ah yea, I think I do,” not sure where his dad was going with this.

“Man, you should have seen the look of pride on your face, I mean you were doing it, you were driving all by yourself. You stopped and looked at your mom and me with a look on your face that’s still fresh in my mind today. It was the look that said—
I can do this!
And you
did
Ryan. You did do it all by yourself.” His father said with enthusiasm.

“You
had that same look on your face when the pinewood derby car you and I built won second place. Huh Ryan, you remember that don’t you? Do you remember the pride you felt? I was just swelling with pride.”

“How about the time you and your mom won the mother-son dance at the boys club? Can you recall the look on you
rs and your mother’s face in that picture you brought home?”

“Oh yea, we had some moves, mom rehearsed with me for about an hour before we left. I felt that we had a chance to win it
all.” Ryan said, with a spark of pride.

It was th
at
spark
that Rob was waiting for. He knows that he has to fan it into a raging fire if they have any chance at being rescued. Rob carries on.

“I know you remember this one son. It’s the end of regulation
time—it’s time for the shoot out and Ryan’s the goalie. All Ryan has to do is block this last shot and his team wins the championship. The ball is kicked—it’s a rocket to Ryan’s face—with gloved hands he bats the ball down and steps out of the goalie box. He is swamped by his team mates as they carry him off to the sideline. Thanks to Ryan, they have won the championship!”

“With a little less drama dad, but yes it was an awesome sense of achievement. You taught me to never give up, that I should always strive to be the best I can in life.
You and mom, and everybody in the family are always there to support me.” Then turning his head to the window, “but this dad is something I must do
all alone
.”

“Oh, but your wrong son, so very wrong,” his father continues, “you see you
are the end result of all the love that has been passed down from generation to generation. It has been passed down to you through both the Sykes and your mother’s lineage.”

Rob feels it’s time to close out this pep
talk, with a bang.

Ryan seems confused so Rob tries to clarify.

“You are carrying
inside
of you, right
now,
the love, power, and courage of all that have come before you. All everyone wants out of life is to produce something better. Go back 10 generations of Sykes—all of what they were boils down to
you
—and if what they did is not to go to waste—
you
must carry it forward to your offspring or it
dies
with you. You are not alone we are all with you in purpose and in spirit and that is how you will save me and yourself, as it is for the purpose of
all
. “Please try to understand—“

“Dad, you can stop right there. I have a job to do and it’s time to get going if I’m going to make the Oklawaha
River by dark.” Ryan pops the door open.

Rob did it!

It worked!

He breathes a sigh of relief.

Ryan stepping out turns and looks into the cockpit, “Hang in there, for as long as you said you would— I will be back with a rescue team by 6 pm tomorrow. Maybe it will be sooner!”

“I love you dad.”

“I love you too son and all our love and prayers go with you — hurry back I’ll be waiting.” Ryan firmly closes the cockpit door.