Into The Darkness

by Doug Kelly

  “What’s it for?” asked Richard, as Dylan put a bundle of river cane next to him. “It looks like skinny bamboo.”

  “Keep these dry and I’ll turn them into arrows for the bows,” said Dylan. “I’ll try to hunt with them; it’s all we’ve got now.”

  The men pushed away from the bank. Gray clouds remained low in the sky. Intermittent raindrops would tease the men every time they thought about removing their rain ponchos. The river had swollen from the rain and the current grew stronger.

  For miles, they saw desolate rock bluffs and scruffy patches of grass under the gray sky. Their surroundings appeared inhospitable. By late afternoon, their journey had taken them to a small oasis on the riverbank. They approached a gravel clearing that joined to green grass and trees. Kevin was first to signal that this was the place to stop for the day. They pulled the rafts out of the water and surveyed the new landscape with wide, alert eyes. Dylan took the hatchet to chop driftwood for a fire, hoping the inside of the wood had remained dry. Kevin and Richard decided to find a secluded area to camp in the thicket of woods. They found a flat spot under the canopy of trees. They noticed an existing fire ring someone else had used. The ashes were old and cold; no one was around now. Dylan brought several pieces of driftwood and split them open. The center of the wood was dry. Dylan split the dry core from the wood to use as kindling to start a fire, and when he had sufficient kindling, he gathered some larger pieces of wood, leaving Kevin and Richard to get the fire started. Dylan wanted a good fire this evening because he was determined to dry the bow wood further, and the green river cane, too. When the wood and cane were completely dry, he would be able to finish them and hunt for food. With a bow and arrow, he might be able to get something bigger and different than fish to eat.

  In spite of the damp weather, they were able to create a decent fire. Dylan bundled the river cane tightly together to keep it straight as it dried. Next to the cane, but still at a safe distance from the fire, Dylan placed the bow wood.

  “I’m starving.” Richard’s stomach growled with hunger. “Can we eat now?”

  “Are the bagels still any good? Think they’ve gone stale yet?” asked Dylan.

  Richard reached into his raft. “I don’t care if they’re stale. We have to eat something,” said Richard, as he handed each man a bagel.

  “I’ll go set the lines for fish and filter some water,” said Kevin, as he walked away.

  Dylan sat by the fire and alternated holding the river cane and bow wood close to it. Keeping it warm would dry the wood faster. As he sat there, he noticed something flicker under a bush, reflecting the fire light. He pulled it out from under the bush and showed it to Richard. It was the Mylar wrapper of an MRE.

  “Did you eat this?” Dylan asked Richard.

  “No, I never touched them. We only have a few left.”

  Dylan stared at the wrapper in silence. Then he spoke angrily, “That bastard Sergeant Haber was here. I bet we just missed him.”

  In the distance, Dylan and Richard heard Kevin yelling. “Hey! Get over here.”

  Dylan held his index finger to his lips, signaling Richard to be quiet. Dylan grabbed his knife and whispered to Richard, “Haber?”

  Richard shrugged his shoulders and looked for a place to hide. Dylan motioned with his hands that they should split up and Dylan would be the one to circle around to Kevin. Dylan slowly moved through the trees looking in the direction of Kevin’s voice. When the shrubbery began to clear, he saw Kevin holding something with both hands. It looked like a large rock. There was no sign of Sergeant Haber.

  “Look, a salt lick. This will go good with some fish or whatever we get,” said Kevin.

  “You have got to be kidding. We thought you ran into Haber,” said Dylan, looking around the horizon and shaking his knife at the river. “I found an MRE wrapper back there and thought you might have run into him.”

  Kevin cringed at the thought of meeting up with Haber. “Nope, but I found a tree house back there. Go check it out,” said Kevin, nodding in the direction he had come from.

  Dylan walked back into the wooded area, looking upward. In a heavily branched tree, he saw something, but it was not a tree house. It was a deer stand. That would explain the salt lick. This would be a great location to hunt deer. The deer could eat the plentiful grass and come back for the salt lick and river water. He approached the boards nailed to the tree and tested the first few with his hands. They felt strong enough to hold him and they were not heavily weathered. He estimated the structure was only a couple of years old. Dylan sheathed his knife and began to climb the ladder. He pulled himself up into the stand and surveyed the landscape. It was the perfect spot to hunt deer.

  “Anything up there?”

  “There are just some newspapers up here. I’ll bring them down and we can use them to start fires.”

  Dylan bent over to grab the pile of newspapers. As he wrapped his hands around the papers to scoop them up, he felt a sharp pain in one of his fingers. He recoiled, and kicked the papers to the side angrily. He looked back where the papers had been. Dylan’s jaw dropped and his mouth hung open in awe at what he had just found. He dropped to his knees in disbelief. The razor sharp tip of an arrow had cut him. There were a dozen carbon-fiber arrows with broadhead blades, and a quiver lying under the old newspapers. He touched each arrow as if it was a priceless crystal statuette and gently placed each one, tip down, into the quiver. He put the quiver on his back and rolled the newspapers. Dylan shoved the roll of newspapers into his waistband, then carefully climbed back down. He was eager to show Kevin the arrows.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Kevin, staring at the arrows in amazement.

  “We’ll divide these after I finish the bows. I’ll still make some out of the river cane. Save these beauties for something big, like a deer,” said Dylan, as he held the arrow up, staring at it in admiration.

  Kevin asked to hold an arrow. After handing it to Kevin, Dylan looked back at the tree. He noticed it was an old walnut tree, then quickly glanced around the perimeter of the trunk, and noticed all the walnuts on the ground. “Kevin, look down there,” Dylan said, pointing at the ground. “Walnuts are all over the place. We can eat them. Let’s get something to carry them in.”

  Dylan and Kevin went back to the campsite. Kevin left the saltlick at the deer stand. If they caught any fish, he thought that he would bring it back to camp and use it for seasoning. They showed the arrows to an ambivalent Richard who was prodding the campfire. Dylan asked Richard to keep rotating the bow wood and river cane by the edge of the fire. Kevin dumped the contents of his backpack into his raft and they went back to the walnut tree and filled the backpack. Dylan went to the river’s edge and found two rocks to break the nuts open. He noticed the walnut hulls had stained his hands almost black, and decided to save some of the hulls to rub on the bows when they are finished. A dark finish to the wood would provide some camouflage.

  With Kevin’s assistance, Dylan finished carving the two bows to the correct dimensions and placed notches near the ends with the multi-tool. “I’ll let these dry a couple more days and then I’ll try out the new arrows on something furry. Keep your eyes open for feathers. I’ll need them for the cane arrows,” Dylan said, looking at his companions as he pointed to the bundle of river cane near the fire.

  “You guys ready for some food? I’m starving,” said Kevin, as he turned toward his raft to survey the remaining rations. “We better be careful with the food we have left. That asshole stole a third of it.”

  “Give me my share,” Dylan said, as he yawned. “I’m going to eat, then go to sleep. I think that raft is a little crowded for two of us.” He stood and stretched. “No offense, Richard, but I think I’ll sleep up in the deer stand tonight.” Dylan took some food, water, and a blanket. He started toward the deer stand, then stopped and turned to face the two men at the campfire. “I’ve been thinking about Sergeant Haber. We’re wearing the same clothes he is, and he stole my raft. He’s
in front of us on the river somewhere and is going to terrorize anyone to get what he wants on his way downstream. If people see us, they’re going to think we’re with him because we have the same clothes and rafts. That’s not good for us.”

  “What do we do?” asked Richard.

  Dylan shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, but when we meet again, it won’t be pleasant for him.” Dylan turned and walked to the deer stand for the night.

  Chapter Seven

  A distant thunderclap woke Dylan the next morning. He stiffly got up from the uncomfortable wooden floor of the deer stand, stretched his aching back, and turned his gaze toward the small window, edging forward to observe his new surroundings. He froze in place as he looked out the window. In the clearing below, he saw a huge mule deer using the saltlick that Kevin had dropped the day before. In his mind, Dylan slowly raised an imaginary bow and arrow to aim at the deer. Pretending to pull the string back to his cheek, he aimed directly at the deer’s heart. He closed his eyes, released the arrow in his mind, and imagined the deer collapsed where it stood. Dylan’s stomach rumbled with hunger, he opened his eyes and ended his fantasy. The deer sprinted away with the next thunderclap.

  Kevin had caught two small catfish overnight. They were prepared with dandelions and lambsquarters that Dylan had scavenged from the surrounding area. As Dylan was searching for something green to eat, he found bird eggs from nests in the grass. He put the eggs on hot embers from the campfire to cook them.

  Dylan found the general’s letter, still concealed within a large envelope inside a plastic bag, and turned to face his companions. He pointed downstream with the letter and asked, “Ready for Fort Benton?”

  “I looked at the map,” Richard stated. “I think we should get there by late afternoon.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  The sky remained gray with low clouds. The clouds harassed the men with occasional raindrops, just enough to keep them in their rain gear as they floated downstream. Late in the afternoon, they came upon a town on the north side of the river. Estimating that this should be Fort Benton, they decided to look for a place to hide the rafts so they could go ashore. They stopped just downstream of the town and hid the two rafts in a patch of shrubbery close to the riverbank.

  “The weather is still miserable,” said Dylan. “I think we should see if they offer us a place to stay for the night before we try to set up camp.” He tucked the letter under his poncho.

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” said Richard.

  “We’ve had some bad luck, Dylan,” Kevin added. “I’d feel better if you had that pistol back.”

  Dylan was quiet as he looked toward the buildings of Fort Benton. He knew that he had made a big mistake by losing the pistol and his raft to Sergeant Haber. A pistol would be good insurance for walking into the unknown and he knew that what they were about to do was definitely the unknown.

  “You’re right, I screwed up,” admitted Dylan. “I’ll drop the letter off and get out quick. You don’t need to go with me. I understand.”

  “I’ll go, but I don’t want to stick around,” said Kevin.

  “I’ll go, too,” said Richard, looking hesitantly at the rafts.

  They walked toward the town. As they struggled up the slope and away from the water, they looked back and saw fog hovering over the river, shrouding the bushes and rafts. The fog at their backs seemed to grow thicker as they moved farther away. There was nobody walking around the town. It looked completely deserted. They realized the collapse of the electric grid would have kept normal business away and the drizzle probably kept others away, too.

  The sign for Main Street was just ahead. They decided to walk Main Street toward the center of town and look for any government building. If they could hand the letter from the general to the mayor or anyone on the city council, they could consider their mission complete. Only a few blocks away they saw a building with a sign that advertised, City Hall. It was a brick building with concrete steps leading to a row of glass doors.

  “What day is it?” asked Richard.

  “I stopped keeping track,” answered Kevin. “What’s the point now?”

  Dylan glanced nervously around. He ascended the concrete steps. At the top, he stopped and looked back again. Nobody was around. He pulled on a glass door and hesitantly opened it. Dylan looked surprised, as if he had not expected it to open. He swung the door wide and stepped in with Kevin and Richard behind him.

  “Hey!” exclaimed a man from a dark corner.

  The three men were startled. They heard the voice, but could not see anybody in the darkness. They heard someone walking toward them. As he got closer, the faint outside light coming through the glass doors revealed his features. He was an older man with gray hair and a moustache. He appeared to have on a law enforcement uniform with a leather gun belt and pistol. The man looked like he had been sleeping somewhere in the darkness. He walked toward the three men with his right hand resting on the pistol. The man was tall and his name badge was right at Dylan’s eye level.

  “Officer Billet?” asked Dylan.

  “That’s Chief Billet. What do you want? This area is off limits to the general public,” said the chief of police, as he scanned the three men with bleary eyes. The chief rested his hand on the pistol and tapped his trigger finger on the holster.

  “We have a letter for the town.”

  “For the town? That makes no sense to me. What the hell are you talking about?” asked the chief, tapping his holster more rapidly.

  “Maybe I should’ve said for the mayor or City Council.”

  “We still have a mayor. He’s there, just down the hall,” said Chief Billet, pointing down the corridor.

  Dylan took a step forward and he felt a hard thump on his chest. The chief had shoved the end of his nightstick into Dylan’s chest to stop him from walking to the corridor.

  “Hold it. No one goes down there without permission. I’ll take the letter.”

  “We were asked to personally deliver it,” said Dylan, holding up the plastic bag with the envelope to show the chief.

  The chief took several steps backward. He unsnapped the leather strap holding his pistol in the holster. “Listen to me. Turn around and put your hands on the doors. Spread your legs wide. I’m going to pat you down for weapons. Don’t make any funny moves.”

  Dylan felt a knot tighten in his stomach. He had brought the large survival knife with him under the rain poncho. Reluctantly, Dylan turned to the glass doors as instructed. This is where it goes bad, he thought. He risked a quick glance toward Kevin and Richard. From the expressions on their faces, he knew what they were thinking.

  The chief patted Dylan down first. Dylan closed his eyes and his mouth went dry. He felt the chief probe around the rain poncho’s collar, then pat under his armpits with the palms of his hands. The chief briefly felt past Dylan’s waistline and down his legs. Without commenting, the chief moved on to the other two men and again found no weapons. Dylan opened his eyes in disbelief. He slightly turned his head toward Kevin and saw him fighting away a grin of relief.

  “Who’s the letter from?” asked the chief, stepping back and pointing to the letter with the nightstick.

  “General Matthews at the Air Force base asked us to deliver the letter,” answered Dylan, authoritatively.

  The chief considered what Dylan said. He briefly stared at the men as he rubbed the razor stubble on his face. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the conference room where Mayor Jenkins has been working,” said Chief Billet, as he turned and walked down the corridor. The three men followed the chief in single file with Dylan in front.

  They walked into a room and saw a large meeting table near a wall with several large windows. The blinds had been lifted to allow the meager sunlight into the room. An older man was sitting at the table with his back to the windows. He looked up at the men as they walked into the room. The mayor tilted his head downward and moved his reading glasses to the tip of
his nose. The mayor remained seated and stared stoically at his uninvited guests.

  “Visitors,” announced the chief.

  The chief walked toward the mayor’s side of the table to face the men. He backed up to a window behind the mayor and leaned against it. The three men stood in front of the large table, facing the chief and the mayor. Behind the three men was a large flat-screen television secured to the wall. The screen reflected a black glare from the dim light coming through the windows.

  “Can I help you?” asked the mayor, insincerely, while raising an eyebrow and looking over his glasses.

  Dylan stepped forward and slid the plastic bag with the letter from General Matthews across the table to the mayor. “This is from General Matthews at the Air Force base. He asked us to deliver this letter to you.”

  The mayor opened the plastic bag to remove the envelope. He slid a letter opener, shaped like a sword, across the seal, removed the letter, and began to read it. He tilted it to the dim light as his eyes peered down his nose through the reading glasses. Dylan noticed the mayor’s hands begin to shake as his face contorted into a furious expression. The mayor stood up angrily. “What nonsense is this!” yelled the mayor, as his fist hit the table. The chief suddenly straightened up and put his hand on his pistol. “You are demanding the unconditional surrender of my town?” screamed the mayor. As he yelled, he held the letter up toward them.

  Dylan was close enough to see the letter in the dim light. It was not the letter from the general. Dylan instantly got a sinking feeling in his stomach when he realized what had just happened. Sergeant Haber had switched letters to set them up, as if stealing their raft and supplies was not enough.

  “Hold on…just wait a minute—” pleaded Dylan, before the mayor abruptly cut him off.

  “Bullshit!” yelled the mayor.

  “That’s not the letter we were supposed to deliver.”

  “Haber did this?” asked Kevin, speaking in an angry tone.