by John Grit
Nate passed him and headed for the river. “No, you find a place to sit and rest right here. We’ll go together. Stay behind cover and stay alert.”
Brian looked around for a place to hide. “You’re the one who needs to rest.”
Nate was gone.
Brian looked over his shoulder toward the river and shook his head.
Nate found a pile of boxes between a half-rotted cypress log and a palm tree that lay next to it, still living but growing horizontally out of the side of an Indian burial mound that was probably thousands of years old. Brian had been working hard, and the pile was larger than Nate expected. There were a few tools piled nearby, so Nate put his load down on top of them.
Nate looked upstream and saw a good place to launch a raft. The bank was firm there. He looked around the general area for dead standing trees that would float. Finding none, he started back to Brian.
Since his hands were empty, Nate slid his rifle from his shoulder and carried it ready for use. Easing up behind Brian, he was glad to see his son watching their back trail, slowly sweeping the lush green vegetation, trying to see through the brush like looking through a picket fence. Killers could be hunting them.
Brian has learned fast. He needs a rest from the danger and violence, we all do. He’s held up well, but how much can a kid his age take?
Nate stopped twenty yards back, behind a cypress tree. He started to speak up, but Brian turned and saw him peering around the tree. Nate smiled and shook his head. He’s learning fast all right. He’s already starting to develop the ability to sense when he’s being hunted. The smile vanished from his face. Too young. Too young. Goddamn it.
He walked closer to his son, not making a sound.
Brian stood and came out from the thick brush where he hid.
“Anything?” Nate asked.
Brian shook his head. “Nothing.” He kept his voice low.
“Stay ten yards behind me.” Nate headed upslope toward the truck, his rifle at the low ready position.
After two dozen trips, they had everything carried down to the riverbank.
Nate grabbed the two-man crosscut saw, and they went hunting for standing deadwood that would float. Not wanting to haul the logs any father than necessary, they searched close to the river. Seventy yards uphill, near the edge of the river valley, they found a one-hundred-foot-tall lightning-killed pine that was not too rotted and set to work. They cut the first two logs eighteen feet long; it was about all the weight they could manage in one piece.
“That one is more than two feet in diameter on one end.” Brian stopped to catch his breath. “I would never have moved it by myself, even downhill.” He pointed. “And that one is about twenty inches across on the big end.”
Nate handed Brian a canteen. “Drink. You will be dehydrated if you don’t.” He sat on the larger log to rest. “Pine’s been dead long enough most of the sap has drained out. It would be many times heavier if it had been killed more recently.” He mopped sweat off his forehead with his jacket sleeve. “Come on, we’re wasting daylight.”
They headed back to the dead pine.
Working their way along the downed tree produced smaller-diameter logs, so they cut the next pieces longer. Nate made a harness out of rope, and they took advantage of the downhill route, sliding the logs to the riverbank. “Stay alert and be ready to get out of the way if the log starts to roll or slide on its own,” Nate warned.
They went looking for another standing dead tree. They had been keeping their rifles slung across their backs, out of the way, but now kept them ready for use since their hands were not busy. Finding one a quarter-mile upriver, they cut it into twenty-foot lengths and lashed the logs together with vines. Poling the raft downstream gave them a chance to rest from the hard labor of moving the first tree.
Nate jumped ashore and pulled their temporary raft against the other logs. “Get the ax and machete.”
In the last half-hour of the dying afternoon, they collected vines, leaving them stretched out near the raft. Nate used his weight to pull them from tall trees, yanking at the stubborn ones. He noticed his son was exhausted, nearly staggering, as he went about the job, uncomplaining. “Sit down and rest while I do the rope work.”
Brian sat on a water soaked log, getting his pants wet, but too tired to care. The blue haze of twilight in the western sky gave notice that light to see by was coming to an end, and there was much work yet to do. Purple shadows of the swamp changed to darker hues in the deeper shadows under the most leaf-laden trees. He was bone-weary, but got up to help after only five minutes. Nate lashed the logs together with the vines and one-inch rope he had found in the truck. The rope did not come from their farm, but neither of them felt bad about using it. They had lost a lot, and that rope was small payment.
With skillful use of the ax and machete, Nate cut grooves in the logs for the vines and showed Brian how to use loops as pulleys to double a man’s pulling power when stretching them tight before tying them off. “You can’t tie these thick vines using normal rope knots. They don’t have the flexibility, and can splinter if you bend them too sharp.” As he worked, he demonstrated several knots his grandfather had taught him when he was younger than Brian.
“What do you call that one?” Brian asked. He bent over, watching closely in the low light.
“I don’t know as there is a name.” Nate smiled. “All I know is it works great with vines.” He took notice of how his son was deeply interested. He now understands how this stuff can save a man’s life.
It was completely dark by the time they had the raft finished.
“Start loading the canned goods in the center of the raft,” Nate said. “I’ll check for trouble and be back here as soon as I can. Then we will head upriver tonight.”
“Yeah, okay, but we have to sleep sometime, especially you.” Brian looked up at his father, seeing only his silhouette. “Be careful.”
“Once we’re upriver a ways, we’ll stop and get some sleep. Stay alert, keep your rifle handy while you work, and keep quiet. They could be coming up on us as we stand here. Remember, we have to be able to walk down both sides of the raft to pole it upstream, so stack it in the middle.” He took a step and stopped. “Also, watch for cottonmouths. They’ll be out now that it’s dark.”
More concerned with Brian’s safety than anything else, Nate searched the river swamp in a half-mile semicircle. The far end of the arc brought him back to the river one quarter mile upstream. He used his compass often until he had swung back to the river. The dark forced him to inch along the swamp floor, taking short steps, his rifle held out in front to catch thorny vines before they reached his face. By the time he got back to Brian it was an hour after sunset and pitch-black under the canopy of the swamp.
Nate spoke up to avoid being shot. “It’s your father coming in, Brian.”
“See anything at the house?” Brian asked, after lowering his rifle. He had heard his father’s boots in the mud.
“I never went to the house.” Nate could see a dark hulk piled on the middle of the raft. Brian had been busy. “I searched the area so we would know if it’s safe to go upriver.”
Brian sighed, but he said nothing.
“I’ve been your father for a long time, and I know that silence means something.”
“Everything’s loaded. You probably should check it first. I don’t always do things the way you like. I didn’t have a whole lot to tie everything on with, but I used some smaller vines.”
There was no moon out yet and would not be until hours later. They would be cloaked in darkness until then. Nate used his hands more than his eyes to check Brian’s work. He spoke as he worked his way around the raft. “I haven’t given up on the farm yet, but for now, we will have to stay at the bunker. I’m thinking we’re going to have to try to farm there. Staying at the farm is just too dangerous for now.”
“Yeah.” Brian’s voice sounded flat.
“Yeah what?” Nate jumped off the raft onto t
he bank, felt around next to a cypress, and picked up the two long poles they had previously cut, handing one to Brian.
“I already knew that, that’s what. Let’s go before those bastards get here,” Brian said.
Nate did not move. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault. Don’t be worrying about me so much anyway. It takes a lot more to bother me now and a lot less to make me happy. I just don’t want to lose anyone else.”
Nate dropped his pole and stepped closer, surprising Brian by wrapping his arms around him. He let him go after one second and picked up the pole. “Let’s go. We have a lot of people counting on us.”
Brian got on the raft and waited for his father to untie the line and shove off. It was brighter out from under the swamp canopy and in the open starlight. They could see well enough, but soon learned the current pushed strong on the raft, and getting momentum up against it demanded all their strength.
“We need to stay out of the main current by keeping close to this side of the river,” Nate said. “Try to be back to the front on your side by the time I am near the back end and hold the raft against the current by jamming your pole into the bottom while I run back to the front on my side.”
“Okay. But the raft will turn on us while I’m holding it on this side.”
“Yep,” Nate said. “I have to move fast, so that will not happen.”
It took them some time to get their technique perfected. Then they made progress for more than two hours, until they both grew too tired to overpower the river’s current and their progress slowed.
“We need more distance under us.” Nate knew Brian was tired, and he hated pushing him. “You have to get back to the front quicker.”
Brian said nothing. He picked up his pace.
An hour later, Brian could go no farther. He did not say anything, and he kept working, but Nate could tell he was spent.
Nate held against the current with his pole jammed into the river bottom. “I wish it were more, but I’ve had enough. We both need rest.”
Brian held his side against the current, leaning into his pole. “Don’t stop for me.”
Nate smiled in the moonlight. “I’m not. We both need rest.” He searched upriver, trying to see in the dim light of the rising moon. “That palm tree jutting out from the bank—we’ll tie off on that.”
When they were close to the palm tree, Nate threw a rope over it. He heard something fall in the water as he tied the rope.
“Watch it, Dad. That moccasin has climbed on the raft.”
Nate stomped the snake’s head flat and kicked it off into the river. He then used the pole to sweep the palm tree clear of three more water moccasins. They swam for shore.
“Who sleeps first?” Brian asked.
Nate did not answer until he finished rearranging the cargo so Brian would have a place to lie down above the snakes. “You. After three hours, I will wake you.”
“Then you sleep until sunup.”
“Until false dawn,” Nate said.
“Good. That will give you about five hours sleep.” Brian yawned and stretched out on top of the cargo. In two minutes, his breathing slowed and he was asleep. His carbine lay cross his chest, his right hand on the grip.
Lying on the five-gallon plastic buckets was uncomfortable, and Brian woke an hour early. He opened his eyes but did not move. The bull frogs were silent on this night, but the mosquitoes were buzzing around his head. Brian saw his father standing still, but he knew his eyes were moving, sweeping the shoreline, penetrating shadows as deeply as possible. He also knew his father’s ears were at work, seeking out any unnatural sounds in the woods. He watched as his father turned to a sound upstream, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. A raccoon scampered up on a log, reached into the water, pulled out a crawfish, and bit its soft tail off. Brian could see because the log the raccoon was on stretched out into the river where the sky was clear of any shading canopy of treetops, allowing moonlight to reach it.
Nate slowly turned to look across the river.
Brian sat up.
“Get some sleep, Dad,” Brian said, in a low voice, husky with drowsiness. He stood and stretched his aching muscles.
After making his way around the cargo, Nate sat on a plastic five-gallon bucket. “Stay on the front end of the raft, so you will be in shadow, and don’t move at all, just your eyes. Keep your ears working fulltime.”
“Okay,” was all Brian said.
Nate fell asleep in less than a minute.
~~~~
“Dad, someone’s out there.” Brian shook Nate awake.
Nate opened his eyes and gripped his rifle tighter. Though he had been asleep for only three hours, he sat up fully alert. “Get down behind cover,” Nate whispered.
Brian got on his knees and looked over the top of the cargo, his carbine ready.
“Lower.” Nate pushed him down.
They heard crashing against palmetto fronds as something took off.
Nate listened ten seconds longer. He sighed and stood up. “Deer,” he whispered.
“How can you tell?” Brian whispered back.
Just then, the doe got a whiff of their human scent and blew through her nose, making a sheeew sound, alarming other deer in the area. The sound was familiar to both of them. Bears blow a similar alarm, but much louder. They could tell it was a deer and not a bear. Years in the woods had given them plenty of opportunities to hear both. The dark of night cloaked the doe’s retreat, but in their mind’s eye, they saw her white tail raised high, as a visual warning to other deer.
Brian stood. “Shit. I woke you for that.”
“No problem.” Nate pulled a canteen out of his pack and took a drink. He handed it to Brian. “We’ll shove off and try to get upstream some more before daylight.”
“Aren’t we going to eat?”
“We will have to stop when the sun comes up. We’ll eat then.”
“Okay.” Brian grabbed a pole.
“No complains, huh?”
“What’s the point? We have to travel at night. It’s not your fault.”
Nate untied the rope and shoved off. They found the current had slowed some, allowing them to make faster progress. By false dawn, they were close to the island that was not far from the creek that ran by Mel’s bunker. Nate tied the raft to a cypress tree growing out of the river bottom. “Now we’ll eat,” Nate said.
They each sat on a five gallon bucket and ate silently, so they could hear any trouble that approached.
After a few minutes Nate said, “You’ve been a great help to your old dad. I know this has been hard for you, but you’ve held up to it well.”
“And it’s been so easy for you.” Brian finished the last of his freeze-dried lasagna. “You’re stretching yourself awful thin, Dad. When we get back, you need to rest for a day, at least.”
Nate smiled. “We still have to get this stuff to the bunker, boss.”
Brian drank from a canteen. “I wasn’t bossing you. You’re bigger than me, so I wouldn’t do that.”
“The main thing is I’m your father.” Nate stood, grabbed his rifle, and jumped off the raft onto the muddy bank.
Brian followed. “I know that, but you are pushing yourself too hard.” He checked the safety on his carbine. “I guess we’re going to sleep back in the woods, away from the raft.”
“Yep. And I’m taking your advice, so I’ll sleep first, while you keep watch.”
~~~~
There it is again. Now Brian knew someone was in the woods and coming closer. At least two of them. Brian kept the carbine shouldered and in the low ready position, like his father taught him. He was well hid in thick brush, and with a three-foot dead cypress log in front and a living cypress eight feet across at his back he had protection from bullets. Best to stay here and wait. That’s what Dad would do. He looked to his right and was surprised to see his father awake, rifle in hand, and motioning for him to stay where he was. Brian nodded just enough his father could see.
Whaaat? Brian looked over the Aimpoint sight and could not believe what he saw. A teenage girl not much older than him surfaced from the wall of green. She appeared frightened. He took his finger off the trigger. Her attention seemed to be focused to her right, so Brian searched the woods in that area. A man emerged from the shadows and stood still. He held a shotgun, and kept it ready for quick use. The girl was unarmed.
The man eased over to the girl, making little noise. They headed for the river, passing within twenty yards of Nate.
Nate stayed behind cover and kept watch for more danger, keeping them at the edge of his vision, his rifle shouldered, but not aimed at them.
The girl froze. Then she turned, her wide eyes alerting the man, and pointed at the raft. He snapped his fingers and motioned for her to lie on the wet ground. Instantly, she was lying next to a soggy, rotted log.
The man yelled out, “We mean you no harm. We just want to talk.”
Nate said nothing. Brian waited for his father to show him what to do next. They were both searching the woods, not worried so much about the two they could see, but those who might be out there they could not see.
After several minutes, the man spoke up again. “We want to talk with you about the sheriff and other things.” He searched the woods, but could not see Nate or Brian. “We’re looking for Nate Williams.”
Nate signaled to Brian to stay put and keep watch for trouble. He aimed at the man. “Drop the shotgun, if you want to talk.”
The man put his shotgun down and stepped away from it. He still could not see Nate. “I know you to be a fair man; otherwise I would not have come. My daughter is with me, and I mean you no harm, so don’t get nervous.”
