The Wounded Warrior

by Jim Laughter

  “You’re kidding?” commented Leatha. “It’s so beautiful up here. You’d think it would be crawling with hikers.”

  “One would think so but you don’t know anything about the Preserve,” Anna said. “They keep this vast stretch of forest as pristine as possible—almost with a religious reverence. And I wouldn’t say that to just anybody.”

  “Thank you for your confidence,” Leatha said. “I’ll be sure to make a note of it in my next report to the spy masters!”

  “To those of us who have to deal with the Preserve management, that’s not very funny.”

  “You sure no one has been up here?” Leatha asked as she changed the subject to more comfortable ground.

  “Positive. The Preserve managers keep me posted. That way if there is any trouble, they can put it on me to go fix things or to rescue people.”

  “That’s unreasonable,” Leatha snorted. “To make one person responsible for an area this big is crazy.”

  “Now you’re starting to understand the Preserve,” Anna said. “Its main purpose is to provide its managers a reason for existence.”

  “And existence in a bureaucracy is a foothold leading to power.”

  “You sound like some friends of mine!” Anna exclaimed. “Where did you hear that saying?”

  “I picked it up from an instructor I had in advanced civics with the service. I think you would have liked him. He didn’t trust politicians as far as he could throw them.”

  “Sounds like I would have,” Anna agreed. “Just my kind of guy. Is he single?”

  “As a matter of fact, he is,” Leatha said with a laugh. “But I don’t think the two of you would work well together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he is in his upper eighties now. Having a woman in his life as young and active as you would give him a heart attack.”

  “That’s not fair!” Anna shot back as she took a swipe at Leatha.

  “At least I didn’t call you old,” Leatha said and scooted along the ledge out of Anna’s range. Anna laughed. Taking this as a sign that it was safe, Leatha moved back to her original spot.

  “Since we’re on the subject, who’ve you got lined up?” Anna asked.

  “Oh, just a sharp young trooper named Stan Shane.”

  “Is this official or have you told him yet?”

  “He knows,” Leatha admitted. “I’m just waiting until the time is right. I don’t want to rush into anything. He’s on assignment on some closed planet somewhere. It’s classified so he couldn’t give me any details.”

  “Just don’t wait too long. Believe me on this one.”

  “What happened?” Leatha asked, careful not to pry. “I hear the voice of experience in that.”

  “Let’s just say that I waited for him to get a clue and sweep me off my feet,” Anna answered. “I waited too long for him to figure it out. He found someone else who showed interest in him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Leatha said. “Is that really why you came to live out here?” she added with a sweep of her hand toward the wilderness.

  “You’re on to me,” Anna admitted. “I wanted to lose myself in something I loved. And as I said, the only way to be out here was to run the Camp.”

  “Dare I ask how long it’s been?”

  “Long enough,” Anna replied with a hint of defensiveness. “Now what say we get back to scaling this piece of rock?”

  Leatha stood and looked at the rock face above them. While she studied possible routes upward, her thoughts were on the older woman beside her. She wasn’t the only one with a painful past.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Blow it up,” Leatha said. She surveyed the log jam in the middle of the raging stream.

  “I told you before,” Anna said with mock condescension, “this isn’t space. You can’t just blow up anything that gets in your way.”

  “Couldn’t we make just one exception?” Leatha asked with a hint of pleading in her voice. She turned to face her friend. “I mean, it would be so easy and do so much good. The way it is now, it will just cause more erosion and possible flooding along the banks.”

  “This is the Preserve,” Anna said. “It has to be maintained in pristine condition for the enjoyment of those that can’t come here because of its pristine condition.” They both laughed.

  “Trust officialdom to declare land public property and then deny public access to the property in the name of preserving it,” Leatha declared.

  “And don’t forget the public is being charged for the privilege.”

  “Oh yes,” Leatha agreed. “And of course, those same public servants appoint themselves to manage the Preserve.”

  “And are handsomely compensated for their selfless service!”

  “Don’t forget those expensive trips to conferences with their fellow managers,” Leatha said with wide-eyed dissemblance. “Such is the martyred life of these honest and magnanimous servants of the people. May they be forever blessed with bloated budgets, bloated staffs, and bloated self-images.”

  “You forgot about the bloated bodies of these august personages,” Anna added while trying to keep a straight face.

  They’d been hiking deeper into the Preserve for two days. Leatha kept track of both their position and path. Anna, as part of her duties, used a compact positioning device to record their exact location. This information would be sent in later to the Preserve records department along with such details as elevation and weather information. Eventually, all this would be added to the vast amount of data collected on the region. Beyond that, Anna was not sure what would be done with it except being used to justify another increase in the Preserve’s subsidy from the planetary government.

  Reaching the river, the two had again taken readings and then followed it for a few miles in an attempt to determine more about its flow and direction. That was how they came to find the logjam. Since they were due for a break anyway, both dropped their packs and found a convenient log to sit on. After Anna made an official notation about the logjam, the two started talking, which led to their discussion on what to do next.

  “How are we going to cross this thing? We’ve either got high vertical banks or this spread-out mess of numerous rapids, deep eddies, or this logjam.”

  “I still say we should continue following it toward its source,” Anna offered. “We’ll find a place where we can ford it.”

  “But that could be miles!”

  “Most rivers are.”

  “I say we go the other way,” Leatha said, pointing away from the river in a tangent away from their original course.

  “Why double back now?” Anna said as she shouldered her pack and began heading further upstream. “Besides,” she added over her shoulder, “I want to see what’s on the other side of the next ridge.”

  “You and your ridges,” Leatha snorted. She slung her pack over her shoulder and took off after Anna. “I’ve never seen someone so set on going contrary to the lay of the land.”

  Anna smiled when she heard this. Her plan to help Leatha by giving her a good workout was succeeding. She could already see the tension Leatha always carried with her slipping away. Another few days of this and Leatha herself should start to feel the difference.

  Slowly, methodically, the two continued to follow the river. This country was still in its wild state so there were no trails to follow. As a result, they often had to fight their way through brush and around downed trees as they trekked upward. The going was rough, but by now crossing the river had become almost an obsession to the two women.

  One such tree proved to be the solution to their problem. At a place where the river rushed between shear rock walls, a giant fir had fallen in such a way its upper half spanned the narrow defile at a sharp angle. Leatha in the lead this time was the first to discover the natural bridge. She turned and grinned at Anna as the older woman came through the brush from yet another detour away from the river. Anna gasped when she figured out why Leatha had stopped.

  “So y
ou found your bridge,” Anna said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you knocked down this tree when I wasn’t looking.”

  “You’ve got that one right,” Leatha agreed. She turned and studied the tree trunk. Although it narrowed when it reached the far bank, it looked wide enough to walk on. The branches not broken off in the fall were spaced even enough to act as handholds. “Do you think it’ll hold us?”

  “It should,” Anna answered. “I suggest we take it one at a time. That way we not only minimize the weight on it, but we won’t knock each other off if it starts bouncing in rhythm to our steps.”

  “Sounds sensible,” Leatha agreed. “Care to go first?”

  “You just want to see how big a splash I’ll make if I fall in,” Anna said sourly while she studied how to get up on the trunk. Fortunately, several yards back from the bank the trunk had broken over a stand of rocks, which made a natural stairs onto the tree. Anna clambered up the rocks and onto the trunk. Showing excellent balance, she edged her way along the trunk and out over the rushing water below. Leatha watched from the side as Anna continued further out. She noticed that even though her friend was moved slow along the trunk, it bounced and swayed with each step.

  “Watch it out here,” Anna called back without taking her eyes off the tree trunk, “It’s a bit slippery.”

  “It’s starting to bow under you,” Leatha warned from her vantage-point.

  “I can feel it quivering. Wish I’d shucked my pack first.”

  “You’ll make it,” Leatha called out with what she hoped sounded like conviction. Anna was no heavy weight, but the bowing of the tree trunk hinted at some hidden damage that threatened to split it. Happy she was lighter than Anna, it would still be wise to take precautions. Shucking her own pack, she removed her rope and prepared to make a sling for getting her pack across the chasm. She breathed a sigh of relief when her friend hopped off the far end of the tree onto solid ground.

  “Made it!” Anna called back. She noticed what Leatha was doing and started getting ready on her own side. After removing her pack, she coiled her rope and tossed it across to Leatha. Catching the end, Leatha tied it to her pack and then took her own rope and wrapped it twice around a convenient sapling. Anna did the same and waited.

  “OK, let’s do it!” Leatha called out as she braced herself against her rope. While Anna pulled the line taunt around her tree, Leatha played out slack just fast enough to keep tension on the line. The pack skidded over the edge of the bank and hung suspended from the two ropes. In a series of bobs and starts, it moved across the chasm and the rushing waters below and finally to the other bank. Anna secured her line, reached out, and dragged it fully onto solid ground just as Leatha let go of her rope. She pulled this in as well and soon the only thing left on the bank was Leatha.

  “Come on across,” Anna called. “The water’s fine.”

  “Very funny,” Leatha shot back, clambering up onto the tree trunk. Imitating Anna, she edged out over the river, surprised at how much the tree trunk swayed in spite of her best efforts. Panic swept over her when the tree bowed under her weight and a strong gust of wind blew up the draw, causing the tree to sway even more.

  “Not fair,” Leatha said. She stopped and waited for the wind to settle down.

  “Wait it out,” Anna called out while she assessed the situation. Reaching a decision, she secured her rope to the trunk of a stout sapling and prepared to toss it to Leatha. She coiled the other rope and slipped it under her belt. Leatha held perfectly still and waited. The breeze picked up suddenly and then died. The fallen tree trunk stopped swaying.

  “That’s better,” Leatha said, slowly moving again along the tree. As she neared the far bank, it bowed as it narrowed. She heard an ominous crack behind her. In a flash, she sprinted along the rest of the trunk and leapt onto the far bank. Whirling around, she saw that it was only one of the large branches that had split lengthwise.

  “Thought I was going for a swim!”

  “You weren’t the only one.”

  The wind returned. The fallen giant swayed and danced over the water below.

  “Remind me not to come back this way.” Anna turned and untied the rope from the sapling. Leatha sat down where Anna had dumped her pack and got out her water bottle, taking a long swig of the cool liquid.

  “Don’t tell me you’re starting to enjoy it out here,” Anna quipped.

  “I can see why you enjoy it.”

  “It grows on a person,” Anna admitted. She coiled the ropes and handed one to Leatha.

  “Like moss on a tree,” Leatha shot back. Anna started to say something and then stopped and just shook her head.

  “Come on,” she said instead, climbing back into her pack. “We’ve got miles to go before making camp.”

  Anna and Leatha resumed their original course deeper and higher into the back country. Although it was the warmer part of the year, there was still a cool nip in the air when the wind stirred. Neither of them minded because they were working up a good sweat fighting their way through the brush.

  Anna discovered a faint game trail meandering up the slope. “It’s about time!” Leatha exclaimed.

  “It doesn’t go in the direction we were headed.”

  “Close enough for me,” Leatha declared. She eyed the crude course worn in the hillside.

  Anna shrugged her indifference. “We better take a sighting.” She removed the positioning device out of a side pocket and recorded the readings, showing them to Leatha. Taking out her map, Leatha made a notation of the coordinates for later reference.

  “Let’s go,” Leatha said. She finished and folded her map.

  “You want to lead for a while?” Anna asked.

  “Sure,” Leatha answered. “You just want me to be the first to meet whatever animal comes along.”

  “There won’t be anything at this time of the day. This isn’t a main trail.”

  “Oh?”

  “The main trail is wider,” Anna explained. “This is a secondary route used by smaller groups of animals. Elk maybe.”

  “And predators,” Leatha quipped and started up the trail. Since the going was easier, she set a quicker pace than they had been able to maintain previously.

  “So you do know a thing or two,” Anna noted.

  “I’m not always ‘space happy’,” Leatha shot back. Anna just snorted.

  Both women remained silent while they continued their hike deeper into the reserve. The soft soil muffled their footfalls. All around them were the smaller sounds of the forest; a bird call, the rustling of leaves and underbrush, an animal cry, each with its own song or challenge.

  The early afternoon sunlight streamed between the trees and washed the occasional open area in brilliance. Leatha marveled at the variety of life in the forest. Considering her solitary profession in space with weeks and months spent alone among the stars, she’d forgotten how full of life the universe was.

  Rounding a bend in the path, they stopped when Leatha spotted a large adult brown bear off to one side of the trail. They watched in silence while it rooted around an old fallen snag.

  “That’s Sweet Mama,” Anna said.

  “Sweet Mama?”

  “She’s been up here for years. Must have two or three dozen offspring in these woods.”

  “She’s huge.”

  Anna nodded. “She stands around eight feet tall on her hind legs.”

  “Eight feet?”

  “Something like that. I’ve never asked her to stand against a tree while I get my stool and measuring tape.”

  Leatha figured Anna was pulling her leg, or at least gauging her survival senses. How did the camp director expect her to react? Did she think she’d attack the bear the way she would a Red-tail in space? How much did Rose Sharon tell Anna about her psychotic episode before losing control in the restaurant and waking up in the clinic? Did Anna fear her more than she feared the bear?

  Leatha focused on the bear. Something didn’t look right. Her coat a
ppeared matted and darker than the rest of her fur. “Looks like she’s been in a fight. She’s got blood on her right shoulder. I wonder if it’s hers or someone else’s?”

  “I’ve never known Sweet Mama to harm a soul,” Anna answered. “Then again, it is cub season and most people don’t hike this deep into the preserve.”

  Leatha watched the bear root around the fallen tree in her search for grubs and other protein foods.

  “Just stand still. She’ll move on in a minute or two.”

  After peering in their direction with that ‘don’t get any closer’ look on her face, Sweet Mama ambled off into the underbrush and was gone. Anna laid a hand on Leatha’s arm and whispered for her to stand still just in case any of Sweet Mama’s cubs were in the area.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The two Red-tail hunters moved stealthily through the underbrush along the forest ridge. Experience taught them that several game trails traversed this ridge, increasing their chances of an easy kill. They also hoped it would be a quick kill as the weather on this alien planet chilled them in spite of their insulated garb. What they most wanted was to get back down deep underground to their camp. It was almost agreeably warm down there, heated by an underground hot springs. Almost.

  So they went along checking each trail for signs of recent use. They found spore here and there but it was much too cold to be fresh. Frustrated and cold, they pressed on to the last trail. This one was further away from the entrance leading down to their base, but it also tended to be the most productive.

  They approached it, careful they were downwind so not to alert their prey. The few successful hunts in the score of days they had been here had taught them much about the indigenous life. The four-legged variety they were after wasn’t fleet of foot but it was large, strong, had excellent hearing and sense of smell, and could be dangerous when cornered.

  They lost one soldier when he came face to face with the beast with only his knife, hoping he could take down the beast alone to impress the commander who had forbidden them to use blasters on the surface lest they alert any sensors the human mass had around this planet. However, when the soldier got close to the animal, it reared up on its back haunches and pinned him against an outcropping of rock, tearing him to pieces with its sharp claws and teeth before lumbering off into the woods. The soldier had stabbed the beast a number of times with his battle knife but had been unable to inflict a fatal wound.