Journal (9 page)

After
putting out the fire, we agreed we needed to return to our regular, all night,
watch schedule.  We weren’t looking forward to it, that’s for sure, but we
suspected our pursuers were somewhere nearby.  And as if to confirm our fears,
we heard a gunshot way off in the distance.  It seemed to be south and west of
us, but the way sound bounces around in the mountains, who really knew for sure. 

___________

I
took over for Anna at about midnight April 7th and positioned myself a good one
hundred fifty to two hundred yards east of our shelter on the edge of a large
meadow.  It was a good position, or so I thought.  It was protected by a fallen
tree on one side, around which several new growth, four and five foot pines had
rooted, providing decent concealment.  Behind and to either side of me was a
rough semi-circle of other trees and brush that similarly hid my presence.   That’s
where I stayed long past when it was Gabriel’s turn to stand watch.  The way he
had been looking the day before, it didn’t make any sense to wake him.

In
retrospect, my decision to let Gabriel sleep was probably a good one.  That’s
because in as bad shape as he was, and still is mind you, I’m not so sure he or
any of us would have survived.  I better explain that.

Just
before dawn, in that hour when the temperature seems to drop another ten
degrees just to make every living creature even more miserable than they
already are, I heard the sharp crack of a branch broken somewhere to the south
of me.  In that instant, the peaceful solitude of a wilderness morning
transformed itself into something very sinister.  My breath lodged in my chest,
and I immediately dropped to one knee.  My peripheral vision hazed up and then turned
crystal sharp.  My headache vanished.  My back stopped hurting.  My heart rate
doubled, as did my respirations.  As the seconds ticked off, paranoia did a low
crawl into my gut, worked its way up my spine, and hunkered down in my head.  That
was the worst part — the mind tricks.

At
first, I swiveled on my knee facing south, looking for a threat.  As the
moments passed, I began to think: what if it only sounded like it came from the
south?  What if it was instead from the east or west?  So I changed my position,
changed it again, and then a third, and fourth time, always half expecting that
when I did, I’d turn and find myself face to face with Mr. Ponytail pointing
that shotgun at me. 

Next,
the thought came into my head that maybe I ought to just get the hell out of
there.  As I mulled that one over, not by a long shot.  6itI realized that I couldn’t.  I hadn’t
planned for an escape route.  How stupid is that?  If I tried to leave, I would
have been fully exposed.  It also meant that if my hiding spot was discovered,
one man could pin me down while waiting for others to finish me off.  It’s a
panicky feeling, being trapped.  You just know they’re going to nail you, and
there’s nothing you can do about it.

What
was probably only three minutes, but seemed more like twenty, yielded yet
another sound.  This one possibly a voice, a word or two, no more, it was hard
to tell exactly.  It could have been whispered, but it might, too, have only
been my imagination.  It also seemed like it came from the south. 

At
this point, for some reason I couldn’t remember if I had a cartridge ready to
go in my rifle or not.  I didn’t want to lever one in, just to be safe, because
of the noise it would make.  If there was someone out there, there’d be no
mistaking that sound.  There’s nothing like it.  So instead, I eased back the
hammer and pushed on the safety.  I had to engage the safety because my hands
were shaking so badly I was afraid I might accidentally shoot myself if I
didn’t.  I told myself that if I have to pull the trigger, and it just goes
click, don’t panic.  Just lever one in and shoot regardless if someone else is
shooting at me at the same time.  After that, keep on shooting until the gun is
empty.  The pistol would be my last resort.

I
saw the first movement while looking off to the east through the branches of a
small
pine, while my
back was up against one full grown.  It was maybe thirty or forty yards off, and
I picked it up at the edge of my vision in the gathering light of the morning.  
I knew enough not to suddenly turn my head or move any body part for that matter.
 
Movement is noticed sooner
than anything else, just as I had noticed it.  So I slowly, gradually, turned
my head until I could clearly see, first a set of legs, and next the whole man. 
He was walking basically north through the trees but not yet parallel with my
position.  He looked my age, but where I have dark hair, he had light.  He was
also carrying a rifle of some sort.

As
I kept my eyes on him, thinking,
this isn’t too bad, he’ll never spot me
,
I heard someone say, “Shit,” and whoever said it was close by, too.  Suddenly I
was short of breath and had to gulp several deep ones just to get myself under
control.  It only helped a little.

At
that point, I heard another voice say, “Shut the fuck up man.”  The words were
said fast like and strung together in one stream of sound.  He was a little
farther away and to the west of me.

The
first voice, bitter and sneering, said, “
You
shut the fuck up.  This is
just a big fuckin’ waste of time.  The kid and Eric’s little play thing are both
long gone.  They’re probably in Canada by now.”

“You
don’t know nothin’.  Just shut up and do what you’re told,” the second voice came
back at him.  It sounded even closer now.

I
remember telling myself that meant there were three at least but probably
more.  I thought if I’m spotted, shoot the closest one and work my way out. 
Aft not by a long shot.  6iter that, run like hell north and east away from Anna and Gabriel.  At least
they might have a chance.

After
a few more seconds, I could hear their footsteps, slow and deliberate over a
carpet of pine needles, approaching my position.  At that point, the person to
the west of me, voice number two, came into view about twenty or so yards off
and swept on past.  He looked like he was carrying a bow with arrows.  By his
position, and that of the one to the east, they were working in a skirmish line
going from south to north.  That meant that voice number one, the one that was
closest to me, would pass by momentarily.

No
sooner had I formulated that thought in my head then I heard more footsteps and
saw him not but ten yards away.  He had his back to me going east around the
end of the felled tree that protected my position.  He was older, maybe fifty
or so, wearing a dark green coat that hung to his ankles and a black watch
cap.  It looked like he was also carrying a machete in his left hand.  As he
turned north again, around the end of the log, he didn’t look in my direction. 
I granted myself a nervous smile.  They hadn’t seen me.  I thought, maybe I’ll
get out of this alive after all. 

I
let them get a good hundred yards away from me before making up my mind to
sneak out of there and back to our camp.  I was fairly certain that the
searchers weren’t far enough west to have encountered Gabriel and Anna.  If
they had, I most certainly would have heard a shout, a shot, something to
indicate there was trouble.  There had been nothing of the sort.

I
duck-walked between two of the trees behind me and stood up with one of them to
my back.  I picked out a six-foot pine a short distance to the west as my first
stop, and, as silently as I could, moved to it.  I then walked to a much larger
tree, being cautious of my foot placement because of some leafy ground cover
nearby that would announce my presence if stepped on.

As
I reached the tree, my eye again caught movement on the side farthest from me. 
There was a man there with his back to me, short, thick, about mid twenties,
with a tattoo on the side of his neck, just pulling up his pants and buttoning
them.  I froze at first, but quickly I realized that I couldn’t stay there
because I was exposed to the searchers who were now in the meadow and still
moving away.  So I continued toward him not exactly sure what I was going to
do.

At
some point, maybe he heard me or possibly just sensed my presence because he
looked over his shoulder and twisted his body in my direction.  I raised my
rifle and took two big steps to close the distance, just as he turned around to
face me.  That’s how we stood for maybe five seconds or so; him still buckling his
belt and looking at my rifle pointed directly at his face, close enough that if
I wanted to I could poke an eye out with it.  I saw his attention shift to his
left to the base of the tree.  That’s the moment I snapped the butt of my rifle
into the side of his jaw, and he went down as if someone pulled his plug.

The
first thing I did was look back out to the meadow to see if the whole bunch of
them were running my way.  They weren’t.  After that, I dragged him by his
pants behind the tree where they couldn’t see him or me.  That’s when I notice
a little single shot .22 rifle leaning up against the trunk.  It =tiflooked a
hundred years old.  I went through his pockets and found a handful of bullets
for it, transferred them to mine, grabbed his rifle with my free hand and
started off west again.

What
happened next I haven’t yet put to rest.  My mind is still working it over and
probably will be for a long, long time, maybe forever.  I don’t feel good about
it.  I don’t feel good about me either.  And though I want to block it from my
memory, deny it happened, excuse it away somehow, I’ll not do that here.

“…
guilt will chase at your heels all the way to forgiveness.”  Claire Huston June
2050

I
got maybe twenty yards away, if that, and stopped.  There was no running from
this one.  There also wasn’t anyone else to do the dirty work and later take
the blame for it.  I couldn’t leave him alive. 

When
he woke up, and he most surely would, he’d alert all the others, simple as that. 
After that, they’d be on us like a pack of wolves running an injured deer.  We’d
still be in the immediate area.  They’d have a definite starting place for
their search.  They would know there were three of us, not just two.  In other
words, we’d be screwed.  So I knew I had to go back and deal with it.  How
ironic is that, huh?

When
I got back to him, he was still unconscious, but his eyes were moving back and
forth beneath his lids in quick, jerky movements, so I assumed he was going to
wake up soon.  I couldn’t shoot him for obvious reasons.  I didn’t have a knife
big enough to stab him with and didn’t want to do it anyway for the same reason
I didn’t want to pound his skull into mush with the stock of my rifle — too
messy I guess.  Listen to me.  Is murder ever neat?  So I stripped off his belt,
wrapped it around his throat once, stood on the buckle with my boot, gripped
the other end with both hands and pulled for all I was worth.

Ah
man, I can’t begin to describe what I was feeling right about that moment. 
Just think about it for a second.  There I was, standing over this guy, looking
directly down at his face and killing him — actually killing him.  It probably
wouldn’t have been as bad if I’d been able to just shoot him.  What, it takes
about a nano-second to make the decision to pull the trigger and another for
the bullet to hit its mark?  Strangling a guy, though, was a whole different
matter.  It just went on and on and on.  And with each tick of life came the
decision to continue or stop, so I had to decide on this person’s fate not just
once but essentially a thousand times until he was forever lifeless.

I
hope he didn’t know what I was doing to him.  I hope he was unconscious throughout
the whole ordeal.  But the truth is, I don’t think he was, unconscious that
is.  There was a second there, right after I started to yank on the belt, when
his hands moved from his waist to his chest and kind of fluttered a bit before
dropping to his side.  I think he knew.  Yeah, I’m sure he knew.   

Getting
back to it, after I was finished murdering another human being, I retraced my
steps west and eventually back to camp where Anna was trying to build a fire. 
Timing is everything I guess.  If she had started that fire five minutes
earlier, well, you can imagine the rest.  in both directionstif

They
both must have read something unpleasant on my face because they stopped what
they were doing and stared.  Anna asked, “What, what happened?”

I
simply said, “They’re close.  We have to get out of here right now.  Grab what
you can and let’s go.”

I
have to hand it to her and Gabriel both; they turned to it.  We were out of
there in less than five minutes.  We had to leave the tarp behind, though.  It
was tied down and covered with tree limbs.  I knew I was going to miss it, but
I felt it was just that important to get moving.  See, I had a plan on how to
maybe turn the situation to our advantage.  Maybe.   

As
I thought back on the last few minutes, several things came to mind.  For one,
none of the men I saw were carrying any equipment other than weapons.  That
told me that they probably weren’t going to continue north indefinitely.  Since
they weren’t prepared to stay overnight, eventually they’d turn around and
start back.  Since they were walking from south to north without any gear,
their camp, where no doubt it was all stashed, was probably to the south of
us.  My guess was that it wasn’t too far away either because they probably
started out just before sun-up.  I also noticed that while all of them seemed
well fed, not all of them were well armed, which meant we might have a chance
even if we were spotted.  And of course from the bit of conversation I overheard,
they weren’t sure we were in the immediate area; another advantage, though
fleeting.