Hunger appeased, he glanced at his watch. He had well over an hour before the chopper returned. He grabbed the damaged backpack and was out the door, heading for the spot Tremble’s group had cached their surplus gear. The path was all downhill, and he made it to the cache in less than fifteen minutes. He was disappointed but not surprised to find it contained no food—or little else. It looked like they’d only dumped nonfood items for which they had duplicates: a large Victor rat trap, several heavy-duty black plastic contractor trash bags tightly rolled, another small hank of paracord, a half-roll of duct tape, and a ziplock bag full of fire starters. Slim pickings perhaps, but better than he expected.
Anderson had piled the stuff into his ragged backpack and slung it over his shoulder by the one good strap when he noticed another pile of leaves. He brushed them away to find a pair of well-worn leather work boots, and he recalled the guy stripping the boots off his dead partner. After a moment’s hesitation, he knotted the laces together and hung the boots around his neck, then took off for the hostel.
By the time the chopper thumped over again, he was ready. He’d used some of the paracord to repair the broken pack strap, then filled the pack with his meager supplies. He’d then cut the boots to pieces with the knife Tremble left him, bundling the soles and leather together, wrapped with one of the boot laces before it went into the pack. You never knew when leather might come in handy. He kept out one soft leather boot tongue and combined it with the other boot lace to fashion a sling, which he tested just outside the hostel door, using pebbles as projectiles. It was awkward, but with practice, he might take a rabbit or squirrel. The packing quilt was rolled tight and secured to the pack with more paracord, and four plastic water bottles were full and stowed in side pockets on the pack, where he could get to them. As an afterthought, he flushed the plastic bleach jug well and filled it with water. It just fit in the main compartment of the pack, adding eight pounds, but you could never have enough water.
He drank his fill from the kitchen faucet one last time, then rechecked the guidebook. He had an hour and a half to two hours before the chopper returned and almost four miles to cover over up-and-down terrain to reach a good-size stream. He could make that standing on his head.
An hour and twenty minutes later, struggling up a steep slope and still over a mile from his destination, Anderson heard the chopper approaching from the south and realized his error. He’d timed the chopper at the extreme northern end of its run, but once in the search area, it would fly over twice on each circuit, north and south bound, likely scanning on each run. Knowing he’d never reach the stream in time to soak the quilt as he’d intended, he slipped off his pack and fumbled with the knots holding the quilt, the sound of the chopper growing louder. Panicked at the unyielding knots, he slashed the paracord with his knife and threw the quilt on the ground in a heap before soaking it with the water from the bleach jug.
The chopper was almost on him now and he tossed the empty jug to one side and collapsed on the ground beside his backpack, pulling the sodden quilt over both himself and his gear. The chopper thumped overhead, hidden by foliage and without slowing. When it returned a few minutes later, he feared it had picked him up, but it passed again with no hesitation, now on the southbound leg. He gave a relieved sigh and rolled from under the quilt, then squeezed it as dry as possible before rerolling it. He tied it up with a carrying handle this time, so the wet quilt wasn’t in constant contact with his pack.
It was a learning experience—the weight of the pack and steepness of the terrain slowed him more than he’d figured, and the extra water provided an unexpected benefit. He no longer had to adjust his speed to be near streams during flyovers as long as water sources afforded an opportunity to top up his big jug. The little AT guidebook showed multiple water sources along his route.
More confident now, he endured three more round-trip flyovers and made another eight miles before he started looking for a place to stop for the night. Three hundred yards off the trail he found a steep bluff and walked along the bottom of the near vertical rock face until he found what he was looking for. An undercut formed a shallow cave perhaps four feet tall and twenty feet deep, his bedroom for the night. He stowed his gear at the back and took the knife to cut some evergreen boughs to make a bed. He had two protein bars and a bottle of water for supper, then spent the remaining daylight hours practicing with his sling.
The final overflight of the day drove him into his hiding place, where the sun-heated rocks and substantial overhang masked all trace of his presence. With his pack as a pillow and exhausted by the unfamiliar exertion, sleep came with the fading sun.
***
George awoke stiff and sore at first light. He counted his dwindling supply of protein bars and restricted his breakfast to half a bar, washed down with a full bottle of water. He decided to try to make the highway crossing before the first chopper flight.
He was roughly two miles from crossing US 50 at Ashby Gap, a four-lane highway with a wide grassy median strip and a right of way cleared on either side. It was a logical place to intercept travelers on the Appalachian Trail, and his first major challenge. He’d driven the road countless times during his daily commute, back before everyone moved onto the base at Mount Weather. However, he’d never looked at it from the perspective of someone attempting to sneak across it in ‘stealth’ mode.
A half mile from the crossing, the first chopper flight of the day forced him under the wet quilt and he lay there until the return southbound flight a few minutes later. He was up and on his way again before the sound of the chopper faded. The trees thinned and he slowed, moving from trunk to trunk until he had a good view of the highway crossing in front of him left to right, fifty feet down a gradual slope. It looked clear, but he’d be totally exposed for a distance of at least two hundred feet. He was weighing the risk when a black SUV turned on to US 50 from Blue Ridge Mountain Road. He watched the car move in front of him and go west a few hundred yards before pulling to the shoulder in the shadow of some trees, right next to another black SUV he’d missed. Anderson looked at his watch—six a.m. straight up—shift change.
Sure enough, the men in the two cars spoke through their open windows; then the car being relieved started up and drove down Highway 50 to turn on to Blue Ridge Mountain Road, no doubt headed back to Mount Weather. This was not good, and Anderson considered his alternatives. There were one or two places nearby where streams ran under the highway, but he couldn’t recall exactly where they were. That had never been important when he drove the road, and distances at sixty miles an hour and on foot were two completely different things.
He sighed. It was what it was. He’d have to stay in the woods north of the highway and head west until he found a stream, then follow it south and wade through the culvert beneath the highway. Once across, he’d find his way back to the trail. More importantly, in getting to the culvert he’d have to stay well back from the farmhouses along the highway and hope he didn’t have to cross too many open fields. He cursed under his breath and faded back into the trees before he shouldered his pack to pick his way west through the dense undergrowth.
That’s when he heard the dogs in the far distance, baying wildly as they came down the Appalachian Trail.
Chapter Nineteen
1 Mile off the Appalachian Trail
Near Virginia/West Virginia Border
Day 20, 5:35 a.m.
Bill Wiggins and Simon Tremble made their way toward the plaintive squeals, moving carefully in the predawn light. Wiggins grimaced as they reached the source of the sound. The rabbit had almost escaped the snare; rather than breaking its neck as intended, the loop had caught a hind leg and the sapling jerked the animal skyward, to twist and squeal. Wiggins moved quickly, snapping the animal’s neck before removing it from the snare and adding the now lifeless body to the plastic grocery bag they were using as a game sack.
“I hate when we don’t get a clean kill,” Wiggins said. “He could’ve been hangi
ng here for hours. And it’s not like it’s always quiet. Shooting him might have made less commotion and been a lot more humane.”
Tremble shook his head. “He’d have been squealing if he was being killed by a wolf or a fox, but a gunshot’s an unnatural sound. Even that little popgun of yours has a sound signature that’ll carry a ways. We all need some protein and we can’t eat up what little jerky you and Tex have; you’ll need it going north, and besides, it wouldn’t last long anyway.”
Wiggins sighed and inclined his head toward the snare. “Yeah, I know. Should I reset it?”
Tremble shook his head. “Between the rabbit and the squirrels we took out of the deadfalls, we have enough for today. We’re not burning many calories hunkered down, and the meat won’t keep anyway, so no point taking more than we can use. Let’s step off into the woods a ways and skin and gut these. I want to keep the offal away from the cave; no point in drawing up predators.”
They made short work of dressing their game, then started back through the woods toward their hideaway. They stepped over a small stream and set their guns and game on nearby rocks before turning back to the flowing water. Wiggins fished a small plastic bottle of soap from his pocket, another resource provided by Levi, and squeezed a dab into his palm before passing the bottle to Tremble. Both men lathered the blood off their hands, then squatted to rinse them.
“We haven’t seen anybody since we dodged the chopper and search team the first day,” Wiggins said. “You think they gave up? I mean, it’s been three days, and I figured they’d be all over us like a blanket.”
Tremble snorted. “They may not be looking here, but I can guarantee they’re looking somewhere. Maybe Anderson drew them off, or they’ve just set up a perimeter and are waiting for us to cross it, but no, they haven’t given up. Gleason won’t want anyone to know his intentions, so Keith and I are probably now Public Enemies Number One and Two.”
Wiggins stood up straight and slung water off his hands before patting them dry on his pants. He stood unmoving a moment and Tremble cocked an eye at him from where he still squatted at the stream. Then the older man rose and smiled, shaking the water from his own hands.
“You look like a man trying very hard to say something but unsure where to start, Bill,” Tremble said. “Try the beginning.”
“It’s just … well, Tex and I’ve been talking, and we really appreciate the things you’ve taught us in the last couple of days, I mean the snares and deadfalls, and the Dakota fire hole and all that other survival stuff …” He trailed off.
Tremble smiled again. “Your tax dollars at work, and here I thought the army’s attempt to kill me during SERE training was just an exercise. Now I’m using it to escape the government. Go figure.”
“Well, that’s kind of it. I mean, we wish you well, but I don’t really know what we can do and …”
Tremble held up a hand. “And if y’all get caught with us, it won’t go well for you, and your families need you. I understand. This is my problem, not yours and Tex’s. I get that, and you have absolutely nothing to feel bad about. We’re toxic, and in your position I’d stay as far away as possible. It’s me that’s sorry I dragged y’all into this and I’m grateful for your help. If you hadn’t come along when you did, Keith and I would likely be dead by now. We owe you, not the other way around.” He paused. “When you taking off?”
“We figure maybe tomorrow, if we don’t see any more activity today.”
“Are you up to it? How about your feet? We pushed pretty hard to get here, and you were in rough shape to start with,” Tremble said.
Wiggins nodded. “It’s a problem, and that’s a fact, but mine are much better since I took that guy’s boots, and Tex’s feet weren’t as bad as mine. She’s had a couple of days off of them to rest up, but we still have to find her some better footwear—gotta be near some sort of population center to do that, though.”
Tremble shook his head. “I don’t know, maybe we should just separate and hide a while longer, just in different places. I can’t help but think they’ll be watching road crossings and such—”
“But not for a man and woman traveling together,” Wiggins said.
“I think they’ll be looking hard at ANYONE off this section of the trail that might have had contact with me or Keith. They might just take you out on the CHANCE you’ve come in contact with us.”
Wiggins shook his head. “I know things are crazy, but for all that, I have difficulty believing the federal government has reached the point they’re murdering people on the off chance they MIGHT have talked to you. And even if they are, we have our families to think about and we have to give it a shot. We can’t just sit here forever.”
“Your call,” Tremble said as he walked over to pick up his gun and part of the game, “and I understand your urgency, because the most important member of my family is here with me, but I wish you’d wait a few more days.”
Wiggins said nothing but fell in beside Tremble as they moved up the hill toward the cave.
***
Two hours later, Tremble sat on a rock under a tree thirty feet downhill from the cave, watching Tex grill the meat and listening for the sound of approaching choppers while keeping a sharp eye on the minimal smoke given off by the Dakota fire hole. It was a simple but effective arrangement, two holes about eight inches in diameter and a foot deep, dug a foot apart with the bottoms of each dug out so they connected underground.
A fire at the bottom of one hole drew oxygen from the second with the heat from the underground blaze in the ‘fire hole’ concentrated upward, where it cooked the meat on a grill of green sticks laid across the hole. The fire showed no light unless one peered directly into the hole, and burned hot and efficiently, so it could be fired with twigs and sticks broken by hand. Efficient combustion produced minimal smoke, and positioning the arrangement near a tall tree meant any smoke produced wafted upward along the tree trunk to be dissipated in the thick foliage overhead. An adjacent pile of excavated earth could be pushed in to smother the fire in less than two seconds and large flat rocks on the opposite side of the arrangement but far enough away from the fire to maintain their ambient temperature would cap both the holes a second after that.
The rocks would heat up in time, but it would take a while and look nothing like a human to the IR telemetry during a quick flyover. Detection was unlikely if they covered the fire and fled to the cave at the distant first sound of a chopper. Besides, not only did he not want to deplete Bill and Tex’s stores, he got sick of jerky pretty quickly, and Bill and Tex’s ultralight hiking stove was okay to boil water and pasta, but the fuel was limited, and it was a nonstarter for cooking much else. His mouth watered at the smell of the roasting meat.
“Damn! That smells good,” he heard, and looked up to see Keith coming down the incline from the cave, picking his way carefully and supporting his weight on a crutch improvised from a tree limb.
“I made that crutch so you could get back and forth to do your business with a little privacy,” Tremble said, “not so you could hobble around camp for the hell of it. You need to stay off that ankle if you expect it to heal.”
“Hey, lighten up, Dad,” Keith responded. “It sucks lying around in that cave all day, and I’m not helping at all. I thought I might come down and see if I could at least help with the cooking.”
Tex looked up. “Got it covered, Romeo. All done. So sit your butt on that rock and give me your knife and I’ll bring you some.”
Tremble suppressed a smile as Keith flushed. Tex had nicknamed Keith ‘Romeo’ ever since the chopper scare and continued to tease him. Tremble sensed his son was more than a little smitten. Well, why not? Tex was likely only six or seven years older than his son, obviously smart and competent, and pretty in a very natural, no-makeup-required sort of way. He suspected she was also more than capable of taking care of herself.
“Uhh … thanks,” Keith mumbled and unfolded the knife he’d found in the pocket of the uniform and handed
it to Tex.
Tex accepted the knife and returned to the fire to spear a piece of meat and brought it to Keith. “Okay, you two,” she said over her shoulder, “I’m only serving guys on crutches, so you’re on your own. And that big piece of rabbit I put over to the side is mine.”
Tremble laughed and took out his own knife to spear half of one of the squirrels. He saw Wiggins hesitate before doing the same. If you plan to make it all the way to Maine, my friend, you’re probably going to have to eat things a lot worse than squirrel, he thought.
They ate in companionable silence, holding the hot meat on their knives to nibble while it cooled, then attacking in earnest when they could handle it, grease running down their chins. They ate until it was gone, leaving it to Tex to parcel the meat out fairly. When they’d dumped the bones in the fire hole and killed the fire, each was feeling pleasantly full. Tremble broke the silence.
“First light?”
Wiggins looked at Tex and nodded.
“Want to take one of the M4s?” Tremble asked.
“Negative,” Tex said quickly. “Those are military-issue full auto. We could never explain them if we got caught, and they’d tie us right back to those FEMA guys. Besides, there’s not much ammo anyway. Thanks for the offer, Simon, but it’s not worth it.”
Wiggins was nodding. “Tex is right, but we’ll take one of those Sigs, though, and a little of the ammo. They’re fairly common, so it shouldn’t necessarily raise any questions if we’re detained, and it’s a nine millimeter like Tex’s Glock so we can share ammo. That’ll give us both a pistol along with the survival rifle. If we need more than that, we’re probably screwed anyway. Our best defense is staying out of sight.” He paused. “But what about you? We don’t want to leave you with nothing. We’ll split what we have.”
Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption - Book 1 Page 41
