After the Fall (Book 1): Jason's Tale

by David E. Nees

  “Yes, but who will I shoot first? If this turns into a shootout, none of you know who’ll get shot. I’m a good shot, I don’t miss.” Jason continued as the tension grew, “I’ve done this before and survived, so I don’t recommend you do anything foolish. I’m no threat unless you threaten me.”

  “How about coming with us?” one of the girls spoke up. She eyed him intently. “We could use an extra man like you.” Her look was both challenging and inviting.

  Jason stared back at her. She was pretty. She stared at him, provocatively measuring him. But behind the invitation there was a hint of desperation in her eyes. He ignored the implied offer. “No, I’m going alone. You better get some supplies. You have any weapons?”

  “We’ve got enough,” one of the men said.

  Another said, “I’ve got a 9mm in my pack.”

  Jason could see a rifle laid against another backpack, “What caliber is that?

  “It’s a .22,” said the man nearest the rifle.

  “Good caliber for hunting small game. It’s quiet and the bullets don’t weigh much. I hope you brought a lot of ammunition.”

  “Do you think we’ll run into gangs here in the woods?” another asked.

  “You ran into me. You could run into anyone.”

  “We thought being off the roads would keep us safer.”

  “Probably, but there’s no guarantee. My advice is to find a place soon and gather supplies. It’s that or go back to Hillsboro.”

  “And get raped?” the girl spoke up again.

  Jason turned back to her. There was an angry look in her eyes. “Did that happen?”

  “It almost did. Lots of other girls experienced it. It was that, or become someone’s mistress, same thing if you ask me. Why don’t you help us out?”

  Jason stared at her. He didn’t know what to say. The urge to protect rose up inside of him but this group didn’t look prepared to survive. They had no structure, no organization. There would be the inevitable jockeying for dominant status with the males. Then there would be paring up issues with the two females that would fuel more discord. Their situation didn’t look promising. Yet Jason’s sense of duty nagged him. The practical solution was to leave them to their own fate. The problem was he knew what that would be.

  Finally he answered, “I can’t help you. We’re all going to struggle to survive. I’m going to do it on my own. That’s my plan.”

  “We’re going the same direction, shouldn’t we hike together?” the girl asked.

  Again, Jason paused, wrestling with his conscience. “No. You go on. I’m going to take a different route.” The group gathered their gear and began to walk away. Jason stayed where he was, watching them go up the trail. His mind churned with conflicting thoughts. Was he someone who cut and ran…like his father did? He couldn’t save everyone. He had just reinforced his decision to strike out on his own—to save himself. After they were gone, he set out for higher ground.

  It was the fifth day and the way was harder now. The steeper terrain was rougher than the ground on which he had practiced. The hiking was a constant wrestling match with the travois—his ‘anchor’ as he came to think of it. He made only a few miles progress each day and his hips and shoulders were rubbed raw as he struggled to adjust the harness and backpack. Comfort remained an elusive goal. Some routes became impassable with the travois and he had to retrace his steps to find another way north. It was always north, or as close to it as he could maintain. At night he often sank, exhausted into his sleeping bag without making any shelter, just pulling a tarp over him. Each morning he awoke in pain from his hips and shoulders. When he found a game or old hiking trail heading in a generally north direction it was a huge relief, as he could make a couple of extra miles that day. He drove himself to keep pushing, keep moving. Each day he fought with the terrain, not willing to give an inch to it, driving himself onward.

  The trail was so faint he almost missed it. It was narrow but promised more miles north. An hour along, the trail wound around the shoulder of the mountain following the twisting spine of the ridge above which crooked and curved like an arthritic finger. The trail bed was a narrow bench cut into the side of the mountain. It was late morning. He was fatigued. His feet found uncertain purchase on the loose rocks. Then he slipped. His body lurched to the outside. His hands flung out wildly, but there was nothing to grab. He twisted his body, trying to restore his balance, and then the travois slipped off the side of the trail yanking him over the edge. He fell down the hill bumping against rocks, grabbing desperately at bushes and limbs but the travois flung him downward without stopping. The fall seemed to go on forever in a blur of sky and hillside flashing in his face as he rolled.

  Then it stopped. Jason was jammed up against a house sized boulder two hundred feet down the hillside. He slowly took stock of his situation. Every part of his body was bruised. Pain seared in his left side when he tried to move; he hoped only bruised ribs. He gingerly tried moving his arms; they weren’t broken. Next he tried his legs. Aside from being bruised, they worked. No broken limbs. The backpack had saved him from a worse injury to his spine by cushioning him against the rocks on his way down. But between his pain and steepness of the hill, he was not just going to hike back up this slope.

  He looked up at where the trail seemed to be. Shit. What a mess. The slope was steep. He struggled out of his backpack and unhitched the travois. After, he lay exhausted, unable to move.

  Finally gathering his strength, he unwound a hundred feet of line from his travois. Next he tied a steel ring to the frame. He looped the line through the ring and tied both ends around his waist. This gave him almost fifty feet of room to climb. Further up the slope, he could tie one end of the line to a tree and pull the travois and pack up with a two to one advantage. After setting up his system, he started painfully crawling up the slope. He could only move about ten feet uphill without having to stop to wait for the pain to subside. When his line was close to running out he stopped where he could tie one end off and then laboriously pulled the pack and travois up. Without the two to one advantage it would have been impossible.

  By late afternoon, Jason was half way up the hill. He secured the travois against some rocks and laid back to gather his strength. After resting for some time, he began climbing again. Each time he had to pull the travois the pain caused him to cry out, but he kept at it. He could not survive without the gear in the travois and pack. And so, painful foot after painful foot, Jason dragged the gear up the slope. Hour after hour he climbed and pulled.

  Nearly delirious with pain now, Jason chugged down some water and lay back against the steep hillside. After a rest he forced himself to start again. He could not spend the night on the side of the slope. He might not be able to move by morning. He had to reach the trail.

  The sun had set by the time he finally reached the top. He laid down on the trail like a wounded animal and waited through the pain for sleep to come. Dawn came and with it the pain. It took an hour to sit up and get some water and an MRE. His body was hurt all over, but the ribs were the worst. He spent the morning arranging a more comfortable place to lay down with his sleeping bag and ground cloth.

  I’m not going anywhere soon. At this point, he couldn’t imagine putting on his pack and harnessing himself to the travois. Have to rest here even though it’s on a trail. He kept his 9mm close at hand and hoped no one would come along.

  Jason stayed in that spot on the trail for another full day. He alternated between resting, eating and making his body move so he wouldn’t become immobile. The next day he tied his backpack to the travois and put the harness around his waist. With this set up he could shuffle forward. It was painful and slow, but he was on the move again.

  The forest strips one of pretension. It must be encountered on its own terms. Now injured, Jason had serious second thoughts. Could he make it in the wild? His struggling, now worse, kept him at odds with his environment. He was tempted to abandon his gear and lighten his load, but resi
sted; until he found other resources, the gear would be necessary to keep him alive. Shelter was now a serious concern. He was injured and exhausted. He needed a place to heal and recover his strength but there was nothing.

  After the accident, he would wake at dawn, cold and sore, always favoring his left side. Water, and a power bar or MRE was his breakfast. It took many twenty minutes of moving around slowly before he was loose enough to pack his gear and get back into the harness. The travois was now damaged. The frame was bent and one of the wheels didn’t turn. This made it all the harder to cover ground. On a good day he had a trail to follow, if not, he had to bushwhack his way, tripping over fallen logs and underbrush. The pain in his side remained. He would walk for two hours before his body demanded rest. After ten minutes he would force himself to get up, strap on the harness, and start out again. The pattern repeated with a longer stop around noon to eat. By four in the afternoon, he could go no more and looked for a flat area to camp. Some days Jason would stop with enough energy and force himself to set up his lean-to shelter over a pile of leaves to cushion his sore body. Occasionally he had enough energy to make a small camp fire and heat a meal. Then he would crawl into his sleeping bag and fall into an exhausted sleep. More often he ate cold rations and slumped exhausted into his sleeping bag and ground cloth.

  Dreams were erratic and often frightening and he would awake, breathing hard. Only the night sounds of the forest broke the deep stillness—the hoot of an owl and, sometimes, the far off bark of a coyote. A sense of aloneness flowed over him like a dark wave. Some mornings he awoke in tears, having had tortured dreams of Maggie, trying to reach out to save her, unable to stop the terrible descent of the plane; its fiery explosion waking him.

  Then the rains came, cold and harsh in the early spring. Jason would spend the night shivering under his tarp, getting little sleep as the rain found every crevice to drip down on him. He had learned how to build a fairly dry and comfortable shelter of branches and the forest ground cover, but he often had no energy to complete such a task. Daylight brought little relief. The wet woods dripped with water making it nearly impossible to light a fire. The result was camping cold most nights and no relief from the wet and cold in the morning.

  As his strength diminished, he moved down to lower elevations—towards easier ground—to reduce the effort to move forward. This change brought him to the edges of the forest and the danger of meeting outlaws increased, but it was his only option if he wanted to keep going. Onward he trudged, ever more tired and sore. With the rain, small creek crossings now became dangerous obstacles.

  He stopped at the edge of a narrow torrent of water. It was ten feet across. In a drier time he could hop across the water; now it was more threatening due to his injuries and the gear he carried. How deep was it? The water was moving fast enough to sweep him off his feet if he wasn’t careful. Four feet of depth would be enough to drown him as it swept him downstream. What would not have given him much of a pause was now a dangerous obstacle.

  He steeled himself as he studied the water. It was cold, ice cold this time of year. He looked for evidence of a shallow area as he planned his crossing. Finally he tied a line to the travois, leaving it on the bank and slipped down into the water. With a stick he cut to brace himself, Jason worked his way across, leaning into the current, careful to not let his feet be swept out from under him.

  He scrambled up the bank on the far side. Now taking the line, he looped it around a small tree and began to pull the travois. It jerked in the current and he struggled to pull the gear across. Finally it reached the bank and the current lessened its grip. Jason reached down and pulled it up on the bank.

  This pattern repeated itself with each crossing slowing his progress considerably. His ribs remained painful and his fatigue increased. Being constantly wet from the rain and the stream crossings sapped his strength. He did not have the energy to hunt or set snares. This is bad, he thought, grimly. I need some shelter and time to heal. He kept steering his course to flatter ground, increasing his odds of contact.

  Chapter 7

  One day, looking across the valley to the east, Jason spied a farm house with smoke coming from the chimney. People! The farm was situated on a finger of private property thrust into the folds of the national forest. Maybe I could stop there for a few days to recover? In his condition he had to take a chance. As Jason worked his way down to the valley, the weather began to close in; the wind picked up from the east, cold and damp, the sky thickened with clouds. As dusk approached he stopped. He did not want to approach the house in the dark so he set up his lean-to shelter as the rain began. That night it blew and rained harder than he could remember. There was no hope of a fire. His structure failed to keep out the driving rain. The hours of the night dragged on. Sleep wouldn’t come. The rain penetrated his shelter and then his clothes. The cold seeped deep inside of him. He huddled under the tarp and shivered through the night.

  His mind drifted to Maggie, remembering the warmth of her body in the morning when they would awake. Her scent had a sweet muskiness. He would bury his head against her body while she sleepily wrestled with him until they were both awake.

  The grey morning brought no relief from the cold and wet. The rain was still coming down—this was going to be a multi-day storm. As soon as it was light enough, Jason forced his stiff body into action and gathered his dripping gear. He slowly made his way out of the bush and through the fields in the direction of the farm house.

  The house was in good repair, no broken windows or half-open doors. The barn looked well maintained. The hedges were trimmed. The whole place spoke of order and productiveness. Whoever lived here took pride in their home. Before reaching the farm yard, he carefully circled to the front and limped up the drive. Would they let him stay? Would they shoot him on sight? Jason remembered that he had once rejected others from the safety of his house; now he was the petitioner. Caution called for him to just move on, but his injuries demanded he take a chance.

  “Hello in the house!” He called out.

  A moment later there was a shout from inside, “Stop!”

  Jason did as he was told. He figured that command was accompanied by a weapon aimed at him. The rain continued to fall.

  “What do you want,” the voice from inside called out.

  “Just some shelter until the storm passes, maybe in your barn?” Jason responded.

  “Don’t want any strangers around, you better go.”

  “Please, I know you’re suspicious but I mean no harm. I just need a little shelter before I move on.”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “Hillsboro. Things aren’t good there, there’s corruption and a shortage of food. That’s why I left.” Jason proceeded to give the voice in the house a short version of his trek to date, leaving out the encounter with the men in the underpass.

  “I don’t want anything from you but some shelter. I’m looking to find my own place to survive until things sort themselves out.” He wondered how long that would be as he spoke the words.

  There was some muffled conversation inside. Jason stood in the mud and rain and now began to shiver uncontrollably. He continued, hoping to strengthen the discussion in his favor, “I can help you with any repairs if I can stay a few days. I think I will prove to be helpful. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “You got any weapons on you?” The voice from inside called out.

  “Of course. A rifle, pistol and bow and arrows for hunting,” Jason replied.

  “You’ll have to turn them over if you want to stay,” came the reply.

  Jason looked down and thought for some moments. How could he get past that objection? He looked up at the house, “I can’t give them up. They’re the tools I need to survive. I’ve approached you openly, not like someone trying to steal from you or attack you. That should count for something. Look, it’s raining hard, I’m cold and wet…and injured.”

  After a pause the man in the house replied, “Let me see th
at your weapons are empty, then you can hang them on the porch. I won’t take them. They’ll be out of the rain and in plain sight. You can take them back when you leave.”

  Jason thought for a moment. This was the best offer he was going to get. “Fair enough,” he replied. Trying to ignore how cold and wet he was, he slowly unstrapped his rifle; it had no clip and he pulled the charging lever to show no chambered bullet. Next he did the same with the 9mm. Finally he laid the bow with its quiver of arrows on the ground next to the firearms. A man emerged on the porch from the house with a lever action rifle held at ready. He was stocky built, six feet tall, about 10 years older than Jason, but rough and fit, like a man who had farmed all his life. The rifle was probably a 30-30 thought Jason. “My name’s Jason, what’s yours?” he asked in an attempt to lower the tension.

  “Sam,” the man answered, the rifle still held at ready, not quite pointed at Jason. “Bring your weapons to the porch, then you can head over to the barn. The barn is dry and you can spread out your gear inside. The sleeping should be pretty good in there.”

  “I hate to ask, but is there any chance of getting something warm to drink? I’m really cold and I’m afraid I’m becoming hypothermic.” He was starting to shiver uncontrollably.

  “Stash your gear and then come back to the porch. I’ll get you some hot tea. There’s no coffee left.”

  “Hot tea would be great, especially the ‘hot’ part,” replied Jason with an attempt to smile. It was a joy to talk to someone who seemed normal. Jason wasn’t sure how many people were in the house, but suspected it was just Sam and his wife. He didn’t inquire. Sam seemed to not want to give away much personal information.

  He headed to the barn. Inside he spread out his wet gear to let it dry. Then he walked back to the porch. Sam must have been watching because he met Jason at the door and handed him a large mug of steaming hot tea along with some biscuits and jam. Jason sat down and devoured the biscuits and sipped the tea balancing his eagerness for its warmth against his desire to not burn his tongue. The large mug of hot liquid began to have its warming effect and Jason’s shivers grew less intense.