Into The Darkness (13 page)

Back
at the campsite, Kevin and Richard had gathered an enormous pile of immature
green soybeans. Dylan held up the two creatures and shrugged his shoulders at
the two men. No one who was as hungry as they were was going to complain. For
supper they boiled beans with the squirrel and snake. Their meal also included
the last of the food from the hotel. Before bedding down for the evening, Kevin
and Richard picked more beans for their journey. The huge pile of beans they
gathered was impractical, but understandable. Their hunger was a motivating
force and Dylan decided to say nothing because it was a harmless way to feel
like they were coping with the situation.

Not
having room in Richard’s raft for the two of them, Dylan went toward the irrigation
system with a tarp to hang over a horizontal pipe and a blanket to keep him
warm. He brought his bow with him because it was comforting to sleep with a
weapon.

Dylan
curled under his wool blanket, the bow in front of him and a few of the good
arrows by his side. He closed his eyes and listened to the river meandering its
way across the landscape. Within minutes, he was dreaming of his family. Later
in the night, his pleasant dream turned into a nightmare, and he woke up
sweating. In an effort to regain his composure, he emerged from under the tarp,
which he had draped over an irrigation pipe. Standing by the tarp as it gently
flapped in the breeze, he could still see the glowing embers of the campfire.
Suddenly, he saw something move at the campsite. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked,
trying to clear them, and stared again toward the camp by the riverbank. Dylan
saw something moving around, so he grabbed his bow and the arrows. He nocked an
arrow on the string and crouched low as he walked back toward the camp, stopping
every few steps to glance behind himself. He stayed low at the edge of the bean
field. The bushy plants kept him completely camouflaged. Slow moving clouds
obscured the full moon, so he continued to strain his eyes, peering into the
darkness to see what was down at the camp. As he edged further down the bean
rows, the clouds drifted away from the moon. Through the filtered moonlight, he
saw exactly what was down there. A large mule deer had walked along the river
and was eating from their pile of beans. He really wanted to shoot that deer. It
would be quite a feast, and he thought they might dry some of the meat for
their journey. He quietly took his boots off. The wind was in his face so he
had an advantage over the deer; the wind would carry his sent away. The beans
occupied the deer, so Dylan slowly crept forward on his bare feet. The deer’s
head was down as Dylan slipped toward the side profile of the deer. He was now
less than twenty yards away. Dylan raised the bow and leveled the arrow at the
deer. He was close enough to see exactly where he should place the arrow, right
behind the shoulder blade. At this distance, he hoped the arrow would go
through both lungs. He took a chance and stepped a few yards closer. In the
darkness, Dylan stepped on a stick and the snap of the twig sounded like
dynamite to him. The deer was startled, and spun its head toward Dylan,
focusing directly on him. Dylan stood motionless, except now his right hand
pulled back on the string. He felt the bowstring touch his cheek. The
adrenaline was coursing through his body and it was everything he could do to keep
his hands from trembling. He forced his body to remain calm, adjusted his aim,
and released the arrow. The arrow flew precisely into the side of the deer,
behind the shoulder blade, and the deer made a deep grunt and bolted forward.
The placement of the arrow was so good that the deer collapsed almost
immediately. Kevin was startled from a sound sleep and jumped from his raft,
brandishing the pistol.

“It’s
me! It’s me! Don’t shoot!” yelled Dylan.

“What
the hell is going on? Why are you standing out there with your bow?” asked
Kevin.

Dylan
looked at Richard’s raft and saw him peeking from under the tarp. “It’s safe to
come out, Richard. I shot a deer, a big deer, so get out and look.”

Richard
got up and Kevin put the pistol back in his raft. The men walked over to the
deer, now dead and lying on its side.

“What
are we going to do with this monster?” asked Richard, as he was running the
palms of his hands down the length of the dead animal.

“Let’s
gut it right here,” said Dylan. “I’ll need you to help me hang it from the
irrigation pipes to bleed it the rest of the night. When it’s daylight, we’ll
eat as much as we can and try to make jerky with the rest.”

Richard
woke Dylan at daybreak, shaking him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey…wake up…wake
up….let’s get this going. I’m starving again, and so is Kevin.”

Dylan
opened one eye, stared at Richard, and then spoke sarcastically. “Oh, hello
Richard. I thought I should let you know something. The past couple of weeks
have been somewhat rough for me. I think the civilized world has come to a
screeching halt and I was about a thousand miles away from my family when the
world decided for that to happen. I’ve been floating myself down a river to get
back to my family and I’ve had to kill people to stay alive. What was so
important you needed to wake me up after I spent the good portion of the night
killing and gutting a large deer for all of us to eat?”

“Nothing.”
Richard sulked his way back down to the campfire.

After
a few moments, Dylan realized he should not have been so angry with Richard.
They were all in this bad situation together and needed to practice patience
and cooperation. He decided to walk over to the camp and apologize. Near the
fire, he saw his companions creating flat racks out of green sticks. His
curiosity made him forget to apologize to Richard.

“What’s
that?” asked Dylan, pointing at the grid of green sticks.

“Drying
racks for the deer meat. It was Richard’s idea.”

Dylan
felt slightly embarrassed, since he had berated Richard just moments before.
“That’s a good idea, Richard. I’ll go quarter the deer. We need to get started
on this project.” Dylan turned away and walked a few steps. He stopped abruptly
and turned back. “Hey, Richard, I’m sorry about what I said this morning. It’s
just that I’m all beat to Hell and you caught me at a bad moment.”

Richard
was binding more sticks together, using a vine. He never looked up. He just
smiled, nodded his head, and waved Dylan on.

The
men spent the entire day processing the deer meat. The Montana air was
extremely dry and the campfire helped to accelerate the process. While the meat
dried, the men cooked some of the venison for a meal and ate beans with it.
They ate all day long. Dylan wandered a little further away than he had the day
before, and came back with a shirt full of chokecherries. They ate several
handfuls and saved what remained to dry in the sunlight.

By
nightfall, they had processed nearly one hundred pounds of the deer meat. It
had dried to a significantly lighter weight and the sliced meat was less than
half its original size. They stuffed the pillowcases from the hotel, which had
carried stale bread, full of soybeans and dried deer meat. The meat would
continue to dry in the arid Montana climate.

Dylan
wanted to get started downstream early that morning. He noticed a road that
crossed the river and a recreation area close together on the map. If that
meant people, he wanted to see it in the daytime to assess the threat. The men
rode the current again, their rafts filled with drying deer meat, soybeans,
chokecherries, and the few remaining MREs that Sergeant Haber hadn’t stolen
from them.

The
morning sun was in their eyes as they began to float downstream again. Dylan
and Richard occasionally traded positions in order to take turns paddling with
the current. As it rose higher in the sky, the sun warmed the morning air, and
by the time it was at their backs, they saw the road that crossed the river
just ahead. Large concrete pillars supported the bridge. Beside the road, a
clearing became visible. There were recreational vehicles parked there, and
they could see smoke from a campfire. Dylan wanted to quietly float past the
area, hide the rafts downstream, and then walk back to where the RVs were to
have a look around. If confronted, they would lie about having rafts and say
they were walking the road.

They
went ashore just downstream of the bridge at a spot where there was enough
shrubbery to conceal the rafts. Dylan and Kevin strung their bows. Kevin tucked
the pistol under his shirt.

“What
are we doing here?” asked Richard. “Wouldn’t it be safer to avoid people?”

“I
didn’t see anybody,” replied Dylan. After he spoke, Dylan remembered the smoke
from the campfire they had just seen, and admitted to himself that had to be from
someone. “I want to get a feel for how things are going around us. Maybe we can
get a lead on Sergeant Haber, too.”

The
men carefully walked toward the bridge. They very cautiously checked out their
surroundings. From the road, they glanced back to where they hid the rafts.
They had concealed the rafts well, so they continued their advance toward the
RVs.

Dylan
yelled, “Anybody here?” There was no reply.

The
men walked around the RVs. There were twelve of them. They knocked on a few
doors with no response, then walked toward the smoky fire in the pit. Dylan
thought someone was there. He sat down at a picnic table and stared toward the
RVs. Just as Kevin and Richard began to eat some jerky, Dylan noticed the drapes
in one RV move slightly. He whispered to the men what he had seen. Kevin slowly
moved his hand under the table and removed the pistol from his belt, but still
kept it hidden from view.

Dylan
stood up and called out again, making it obvious to which RV he was yelling.
“Anybody here? We don’t want any trouble. We’re just passing through.”

Someone
yelled through the draped window screen, “Go away.”

Dylan
placed his bow on the table and lifted his hands in the air. He walked closer
to the RV. “Hello. We don’t want trouble.” He held his hands higher. “See…no
weapons.”

“Do
you have any food?” the voice asked, in a desperate tone.

“Yes,
we have some deer jerky. We can give you a piece,” Dylan replied.

The
door to the RV slowly opened. A middle-aged man apprehensively looked out the
door at the men, then scanned around suspiciously for others. Dylan put his
hands down and walked back toward the picnic table, motioning for the frail
looking man to join him. Kevin and Richard stopped eating the jerky and placed
their shares in front of them on the picnic table. The man stood next to the
table and gawked at the food with wide, hypnotized eyes. He was desperate with
hunger.

Dylan
spoke to the man as he pointed to the deer jerky. “Go ahead. You look like
you’re starving.”

The
man leaned forward, reaching for the food. As he was about to grab the jerky in
front of Kevin, he gasped and jumped backwards. Through the slatted top of the
picnic table, the man had seen that Kevin was holding a pistol. He started to
shake and held his hands up. Kevin realized what had happened and quickly
apologized to the man. He explained that they had seen some bad people on their
journey and only used the gun for protection. Kevin tucked the pistol back into
his pants and the man grabbed the food, eating it ravenously.

“I
haven’t eaten for days. All of us here were low on food, then what little we
had was stolen from us.”

“What
happened?” Richard asked.

“Everything
stopped working here at the campsite. We couldn’t make a call for help.
Everyone pooled their food together and we rationed it out. Some of us went
fishing and that helped. If we needed water, we just boiled it on the fire.
That’s what I was getting ready to do when you stopped by.” The man paused and
stared at the fire. He appeared weak from hunger.

“You
said the food was stolen?” prompted Richard.

The
man rubbed his hands down his face and tried to wet his dry lips. “Some guy
walked up on us like you just did, two days ago. He said he didn’t want any
trouble and he was wearing camouflage pants just like you guys. Everyone told
him they didn’t have enough to share and he walked away. But then he came back
with a rifle, like a military rifle, and pointed it at us, telling us to give
him our food. One man tried to jump him, but he got shot right in the head. It
didn’t even bother that bastard to shoot somebody in cold blood. He grabbed our
food, put it into his rain poncho, and took off.”

The
man pointed toward a large oak tree. “We buried the dead guy there. All the
others left yesterday. They said they couldn’t take it here anymore and were
going to walk for help. I’ve got asthma and will run out of medication in a few
days. There’s no way I could make a trip like that, so here I am, starving to
death.” The man looked up at Dylan with distant, glazed eyes. “Do you think
they will come back for me?”

“Sure,
just give it some time.” Dylan put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Would
anybody care if we slept here tonight?”

“It
doesn’t matter. They’re all gone.”

The
man went back to his RV. Dylan told them they should wrap all their food in a
tarp and string it up in a tree so animals would not get it. They hid the food
and came back with fishing equipment. Dylan went to the big shade tree and
began to pick up acorns. Then while Richard boiled the acorns, Dylan scavenged
for something green to eat. The grassland nearby had many dandelions. Dylan
brought back an armful for supper. Kevin stopped fishing at four catfish and
set the lines for the night. They tapped on the door of the RV and invited the
man to join them for their evening meal. He hastily agreed, and ate hungrily.
Dylan let him know that acorns and dandelions were edible and pointed out that
he was right next to a large oak tree. The man thanked him for the information
and told them to pick any RV for the night, then returned to his camper.

“Let’s
take the big one,” said Kevin.

“Keep
your eyes open for anything we can use,” said Dylan.

The
men entered the large RV.

“Sleeping
in a bed, now that’s going to be a change,” said Dylan. “I have slept on the
ground every night, except the night in the deer stand, since that asshole
stole my raft.”