Laughing, they clinked the bottoms of their beer bottles together, sitting at the end of the bar in Checkerz. Dixie, the manager, looked up from where she was stocking the cooler and smiled at their laughter, then turned back to her task. Deke tipped the top of his bottle towards the dark-haired woman. “Dix is pretty. Funny, too. Check it out, Gunny. You could go for that.”
“Have you seen her old man? He’d fucking kill me.” Gunny choked on his beer. “Damn, man. I thought we were friends. You hatin’ on me these days?”
“Yeah, he’d roll your big ass, for sure.” Deke’s voice was heavy with sarcasm and they both laughed. Her old man was big and tough, but he was also firmly secure in what he had with Dixie, putting up with all kinds of shit from the bar’s patrons with hardly a blink. The man knew he had a good thing going for him, and trusted her not to stray. Gunny flipped a bill on the bar and waved goodbye to Dixie, laughing at the complaint she called after them, “Quitters!”
As he climbed on his bike, his mind turned back to what Deke had been talking about, finding someone he wanted to spend time with. Not just fuck, which was how he played it off, but someone he could talk to, someone to look forward to seeing, someone who would be waiting for him at home. “Home,” he muttered as he rode south and then west, turning into his sparsely populated neighborhood. The last time he moved houses, one of the criteria he set for Myron was a lack of neighbors, and as always, the man had come through for him.
Pulling into his garage, the happy barks and excited growls rang from inside the house and he laughed aloud. Tank and Rocky were always pleased to see him, regardless if he was gone five minutes or five hours. The inside of his house wasn’t as empty as it used to be, and it seems he did have someone waiting at home. Maybe not quite what Deke had in mind, but at least his pups wouldn’t betray him.
With that single thought…single word…he tensed, gaze sweeping the area, nervously watching along the bottom edge of the garage door as it closed, making sure nothing snuck in under the lowering barrier. No people, no sand-covered bodies, no spreading puddle of crimson, nothing. Gunny spoke aloud, “There’s nothing there. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Nothing. You know there’s fucking nothing there.” You’re right; there’s nothing to see, Kincade said.
Teeth clenched, he drew deep breaths in through his nose, neck muscles tensed until he shook with the strain. “Goddammit, you’re not fucking here…not fucking here.” He took a harsh breath, repeating his words. “Not fucking here.” In these moments, it felt as if he were drowning, sucked under the surface of his memories with hardly a ripple to mark his passage, fighting to get back to the air. He had to break the cycle, but he could already feel the tight band of alarm strangling his chest, hands fisting, drawn up into a defensive guard. He was drowning, with no one to save him.
Slinging his leg off the bike, he backed up to the workbench, hand going out instinctively to the stereo and hitting the power button. In moments, the slow strains of Chet Faker poured through the space around him, soothing saxophones introducing the encouraging lyrics of Talk Is Cheap, and Gunny took a deliberate breath, held it for five counts, and then released it, repeating this process while the song played on repeat. By the time Faker was done singing for the third time, the overwhelming panic had begun to bleed off, leaving him to deal with the dry mouth and shakes he found typical following a panic attack, the effects of adrenaline overload.
Through the years, he worked hard to develop coping mechanisms to help deal with the fight-or-flight urges that made life so difficult since he came home from overseas. He tried so many different things, compliantly taken the prescribed drugs, treating unwanted side effects with more meds. He had talked to the doctors, talked until he was hoarse and his voice was raw from explaining what he saw, what he perceived. He had even at times exiled himself in an effort to keep everyone safe…keep himself safe from him.
Walking up the last incline before one of his favorite campsites, Gunny’s face twisted in disappointment at the sight of a hammock already strung between the trees. It was full dark, and he’d been hiking by headlamp for the past two hours, trying to get here so he could set up in a familiar location. All for nothing, because some fucking weekend warrior decided to hit Knobstone early this year.
April should have been too early for most folks, and if he could believe the calendar on his phone, this was the middle of the week, not the weekend. So, maybe this was a real hiker, someone who would respect this rare slice of wilderness found in southern Indiana. Fuck it, he thought, I’m not going on to the next spot. Dude will simply have to deal with me being here. He shrugged off his pack, setting it on the carpeting of leaves, and used the headlamp to look around the established campsite as he unbuckled the clips and fasteners by feel.
At least the site is clean, he thought. He could see where the guy had cooked, a good hundred feet off the trail in the opposite direction from where the hammock was. Then he spotted the bag of food suspended from a sturdy tree branch a hundred feet in yet another direction. Okay, he thought grudgingly, dude seems to know his shit.
Setting up camp in the dark wasn’t a novelty to him. Even in the dark, he moved quietly, with competence, carefully securing the tent to the poles, laying out his pad and sleeping bag, and readying his morning coffee before crawling into his tent to sleep. Just lay the fuck down already, Kincade said, and he snorted a quiet laugh in response. Throughout the night, soft groans from the hammock disturbed his sleep several times, and each time, he grinned in sympathy. Knobstone was a tough trail, and if the sounds were any indication of his exhaustion and soreness, the dude had seriously overestimated his ability.
Waking early, he opened the tent to see only the slimmest glint of sky through the bare tree branches, and estimated the time at nearly six o’clock. Working again by headlamp, he heated water and made his breakfast of oatmeal then set another batch of water to boil on the lightweight stove he carried, arranging two cups and a baggie of coffee nearby.
He heard shifting in the hammock and watched the cocoon of silk fabric as it slipped and slid in response to the hiker’s movements. The guy stretched luxuriously, feet pushing at and making temporary impressions on the material. Fingers appeared, spreading the edges of the hammock apart, and then rising into the air, the hands and long-sleeve covered arms stretching and rotating before disappearing back into the warmth the cocoon offered. Gunny frowned as he made his coffee, thinking, Dude’s hands looked small…
The hands came into sight again, and elbows pressed the edges of the hammock down as the guy levered himself semi-upright, a knit beanie hat pulled down low over dark hair drawn back into a ponytail. A face popped into view, and he immediately had to revise his thoughts about the hiker. This middle-aged woman was either stupid or brave to be way out here all by herself.
She eyed him uneasily, and he realized for the first time, he had effectively set his camp up inside hers, his tent a bare three feet away from where her hammock hung. Conscious of how this must look, he smiled in what he hoped was a disarming fashion and held up his untasted cup of coffee in a peace offering. “Coffee?” he asked, and was pleased when she mutely reached out and accepted the mug, lifting it to her face and smelling it before giving him a tight smile.
“I’m Lane,” he said, “Lost Lane.”
She nodded, still not saying anything and he poured himself a cup of coffee, making a production of taking a sip, wordlessly trying to reassure her the drink was safe. “You headed north or south?”
“South,” she said, her voice low and melodic, sleep-roughened. She lifted her hand, slowly sipping from the cup. “Peepers.”
Accepting the trail name, he nodded. “I’m going south too. You got water?” Simply by looking at her, he already knew whatever water she had wasn’t enough. She had dark circles of dehydration under her eyes, indicating to him she had missed matching exertion to intake, and knowing the trail as he did, he suspected she probably had gotten lost in the blown-down section of the trail yesterda
y. If she was stuck out in the open with no easy access to fresh water, carrying two or three liters simply wasn’t adequate, and the evidence showed on her face. He focused on her hands, seeing the cuts and bruises there, knowing they were most likely from climbing over the deadfalls caused by a tornado plowing through this area a couple of years ago. She was beat-up, but had kept on, and that perseverance earned her his grudging admiration.
She nodded in response to his question about water and he stifled a laugh. “Did you cache?” He had. Had paid a local to drive him to all the places the trail crossed the road system and hid a gallon of water at every likely site. Most people expected the early spring to be wetter, but he had been walking this trail off and on for most of a year and knew better.
“Couple of places,” she said, her voice still hoarse, and he knew his earlier suspicion of dehydration was correct. “I filter before stepping over water, too.” As long as she had a decent filter for cleaning the water, it was a good hiking habit. Not passing up a water source was a lesson most casual hikers never learned. “Trying out a new Sawyer this trip.” He nodded; that was a good system, easy to work and did an excellent job. “I got stuck out in the deadfalls for a bit yesterday.” Bingo, he thought.
Storms were a hiker’s enemy. They could destroy trails in moments, and then the task of organizing volunteers to restore the conditions and usability could take years or decades to complete. George Carlin had it right when he termed it NIMBY, ‘Not In My Back Yard.’ People didn’t fucking care much about what happened where they didn’t live. Like the war overseas, people didn’t understand how critical it was to eradicate the enemy, support the friendlies, make the world safer. That was a fucking shitstorm in progress right there. Stupid fucking politicians sitting in their safe, little offices, playing chess with good men’s lives. He gritted his teeth. “Tornado tore shit up.” Her eyes widened at the unexpected anger in his voice and she nodded slowly. Knowing she couldn’t hear his internal dialog, he attempted to moderate his tone when he continued, trying to soothe her, “Hot as hell in that valley, too.” She nodded again, shifting in the hammock. “You got breakfast?”
She pointed towards the food bag he had noticed the night before. “I usually eat my dinner leftovers.” He nodded again. That was smart of her; one of the most fundamental rules of backpacking was zero waste. If it was worth packing in, worth its weight in the bag, then it needed to be worth using or eating. She finished the coffee, using a corner of her bandana to wipe the mug clean before wordlessly handing it back.
Stretching, she rolled to the center of the hammock and flipped her feet and legs over the side, sitting in it like a swing for a moment before digging her toes into the ground and standing with a soft groan. Pushing glasses to the top of her head, she rubbed her face with the palms of both hands, trustingly blinding herself for a moment. She needs to break that habit, he thought, looking down at her feet. He could see tape residue on her toes and across the arch of her feet, saw where the angry, red flesh surrounding the broken blisters bore witness to her efforts of the previous couple of days.
“Thanks for the coffee, Lost Lane,” she said softly as she began the process of breaking her camp. He saw her sway a couple of times, then watched with surprise when she pulled out a blood sugar test kit.
“You diabetic?” he asked incredulously, pulling on his pants while still in the tent. He didn’t think she would appreciate the appearance of his dick right after he finally made her comfortable, so figured he should cover up before making his way out.
She nodded and scrunched up her nose at the results on the meter before packing it away with the rest of her things. The only items still left to pack were the hammock and her food bag. He watched as she slipped on lightweight flip-flops, retrieved her food bag, and carried it to where her cook spot was. As he settled and stowed his own gear, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She doggedly ate the cold remains of her dinner from the night before, then poured hot water directly into a waxed envelope of oatmeal and ate from the package. Her filter bottle was sitting beside her feet, and he noted she hadn’t picked it up once to drink, only pouring a metered amount into her cook pot to heat.
Her being diabetic changed her water needs, he knew. His granny had sugar problems, and he remembered her talking one long, hot Louisiana summer evening about how her sugar made her thirsty, and blurred her vision. Bored one day, he had looked up information and found the physical symptoms Granny described were actually damage being done to her body by high glucose levels.
If Peepers was diabetic, then going without adequate water might have long-term impact. He could give her some of his water, keeping back enough to get to the next highway crossing and be okay. But with the independent spirit she evidenced just by being out here on her own, he wondered how he could talk her into accepting his help. “There’s water about a mile south,” he offered, hesitating. He silently sighed, then said, “Finish packing up and we’ll head that way.”
Her head snapped up and she glared at him, defiance and a desire for self-reliance evident on her face. “Thanks, I got this.”
He stared at her, trying to decide what he was doing. This wasn’t what he did. He just walked the trail, bought supplies, checked into the VA in Louisville when he felt too crazy, then walked the trail some more. He hadn’t found a place to settle since getting out of the Marines, and he wasn’t good around people. In fact, as he told the doc more than once, he didn’t do people. “I could use the company,” he said quietly.
She pointedly looked at his belt, where he had two handguns in holsters. He knew she had seen the third he put into the holster at the small of his back, too. “I don’t think you really mean that,” she said softly, looking back down at her nearly empty packet of oatmeal.
“I have PTSD,” he said bluntly. It was the first time he admitted it to anyone outside of the VA, and he wondered what her reaction would be. Simply saying the words fractured something in his chest and he growled when he told her, “Believe me; when I say I could use the company, I mean I could use the company.”
“Iraq?” she asked, and he nodded. She looked at him for a long moment and he saw a shudder make its way up her frame, then she tilted one shoulder up, attempting nonchalance. “Okay, let me get my stuff stored away.” She stood and organized her food, putting on her boots and then efficiently packed the hammock and accruements into a small bag she strapped to the outside of her pack. Slinging the loaded backpack to her shoulder and shrugging into the straps, she settled the weight evenly onto her shoulders with a sigh. She put a cap on her head, and he grinned when he saw it was an Edmonton Oilers hat. Evidently, she had a soft spot for underdogs. Peepers rolled her shoulders again and tilted her head back to look up at him, saying, “Let’s go.”
“Two things,” he said, handing her a bottle of water, pressing it into her hand when she would have waved it off. “You drink when I say so, and we move when I tell you. I never know what will trip me up, so if I act…strange, just go with it.” She nodded and opened the bottle, pausing to look a question at him. He grinned and then laughed aloud at her implied compliance, following it with a softly spoken, “Drink.”
Shaking himself out of the memory, he looked around the garage. That had been a remarkable trip. He spent three comfortable days in her company, no demands for conversation, and no complaints about being tired or sore. Peepers hadn’t complained about anything, no matter how hard he pushed her. An excellent traveling companion, she had been using her time in the woods to prepare for a section hike of the Appalachian Trail. He sometimes wondered how things had gone for her, and knew he had her to thank for where he was in his life. His trail angel, a private version of the trail magic hikers talked about. She jarred him out of the rut he had gotten into, and he had headed into new territory, making his way up to Fort Wayne, eventually meeting up with Deke and, as Deke would say, the rest was history.
The pups were scratching at the door, so he stretched out his hand to
turn off the music, settled in his own skin again. Fuck Deke, he thought. No girls, no way.
***
Crouching in the half-flooded ditch, she eased her aching body down, submerging it below the level of the water, leaving only the top of her head and face in the open air. Exposed skin smeared with mud from her frantic flight, she felt invisible even when the lights from the approaching car flashed across her features. Digging her toes into the mud on the bottom of the waterway, she anchored herself against the slow flow of water here along the edges of the canal, ignoring the touches and brush of trash and branches as they trailed across her skin. It didn’t matter if it was more than plastic bags and vegetation sharing the space. Even if it were snakes or alligators, what waited for her if she allowed herself to be caught again would be so much worse than any injury or pain they could inflict.
His car roared past and she carefully followed its progress up the highway from the corner of her eye, watching for any sign of recognition. No brake lights, no interior lights, there was no indication it was slowing down or that he had spotted her. She thought, Only four more miles and I’ll be safe. Four miles up the road, there was a store that still had a working pay phone, and she could call…someone. She would make it this time; she knew she had to. He would kill her when he caught her again. If, she thought grimly, if.
“Honey, are you okay?” The words came from the opposite side of the road, rising from the darkness to wrap around her and freeze her body in place, her eyes closing in terror. “Oh, sweetheart, what are you doing? You’re all wet. Come outta there ‘fore a gator decides to snack on you.” No, no, no, no, she thought, her muscles tensing to push off the side of the ditch into the faster flowing water behind her, in the center of the canal. Then, the gender of the voice registered. “Come out of there, sweetheart. Let me help you.” It was a woman, not him, but in her initial panic, the voice had turned into his.
Gunny (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 5) Page 6
