by John Grit
Her heart rate doubled when she heard another set of boots sucking in mud as its owner lifted it to take another step. All she could do now was to wait for a shot.
They came close enough she could hear one of them breathing. Still, she could see nothing. Then a freckle of starlight that had managed to filter through the swamp canopy landed on a man’s upper body. His face glistened with sweat. She took aim as best she could, not really seeing him or the carbine’s sights. Just before she finished the trigger squeeze, another shadow seemed to float in behind the man. She heard a thunk, and another, then something heavy fell in the mud. Deni eased pressure off the trigger and waited. Nate was hunting.
The other man must have heard. He stopped in his tracks. He had not chosen a good place. Starlight’s cool dappling painted his right hand. He pulled it away from the rifle’s trigger long enough to swish mosquitoes away from his face and ears. Deni saw the movement. She aimed and waited.
The man took a timid step and entered a darker shadow. He did not come out. There was another thunk, and another. Deni thought she saw a flash but could not be sure.
Ten silent minutes went by.
“Deni.” A whisper came out of the dark, so close it startled her, though she knew it was Nate.
“I’m still on the log,” she answered, in a low, hoarse whisper.
Nate’s voice came from out of the dark again. “Coming in from the river side—don’t shoot.”
“Okay.”
Nate emerged, appearing as a shadow in a sea of shadows, where light was only light in comparison to areas of more dark. He reached for a canteen in his pack, sitting on the log next to her. “Got back sooner than expected.” He took a long drink.
“Are you hurt?” Deni got down from the log and stood.
“No. Not a scratch,” Nate said. “A bunch of them are dead or hurting though.”
“Yeah, you just cured two of all their worldly worries, as well as aches and pains.”
“Damn. You saw it?
“No, not exactly. Too dark.”
“Near as I can tell, they were the only ones around here,” Nate said. “We should keep it low anyway, just in case.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep if you can?” Deni said. “False dawn will be showing soon.”
Nate got up on the log and lay down, his rifle across him, right hand clamped on the trigger area, trigger finger straight and against the receiver.
She leaned against the log, not three feet from him, keeping watch, mosquitoes filling her ears with their incessant buzzing.
Within minutes, Nate’s breathing slowed, and he was asleep.
~~~~
Trees dripping with morning dew woke Nate. The sound of drops landing on underbrush seemed loud in the still of the swamp forest. A squirrel caught his movement when he sat up, and scolded him for many minutes before barking one last time and jumping to another tree, and then another, disappearing in a tall hickory.
Deni had walked away from the log not long after he'd fallen asleep, and now stood in the shade of a twelve-foot-wide cypress, long dead but still standing. The sun was not up yet, but its light revealed fog that hung low and collected in the dips and holes and hog wallows as thick as cotton candy. It felt almost cool, but humidity clung to them as wet and uncomfortable as their sweaty, dirty clothes.
They walked over to check the dead men for ammunition. One had an AR-15 with eleven rounds. Nate added to that number when he gave her the rounds he'd taken off one of the men on the road.
She loaded them into one of her empty magazines. “I’ll use these for up close, because I don’t know where they’ll hit at long range.”
Nate nodded.
The other man had a Marlin lever-action in 45/70. They put the guns in the hollow of the cypress log, along with what ammunition there was for the Marlin and covered them with leaves. Maybe they would come back for them someday.
To keep their energy up, they decided to eat.
“Any trouble last night?” she asked.
“Not really. I got a few, and slowed down their bridge-building plans some.”
“I was afraid you’d go after the duffel.”
“I wanted to, but they were shooting everything that moved when I left. Probably killed a dozen of their own.”
“What the hell did you do?” She smiled for the first time since Sam died.
He told her his short version with no frills or adjectives.
“Damn,” she said. “I never would have thought of that.”
“The chainsaw was there. I guess that’s what gave me the idea. They couldn’t see the log coming at them with the truck’s brights in their eyes, and thought they were safe as long as the truck didn’t hit them.” He searched across his field of vision for danger. “I ran over a few, also.”
“You sure took a chance, driving right in among them. Their confusion is what saved you. Thought you were one of them at first.” She looked at him, her eyes lingering. “It’s not like you to be so reckless. You usually play it safe.”
Nate shrugged. “I intend to stop them from crossing. Besides, it worked.” He grabbed his pack and rummaged in the main compartment. “Let’s eat and make tracks. We’ve got a long day of killing ahead of us.”
“Oh?” Deni looked inquisitively at him. “More tricks?”
“I can only guarantee you more killing.”
Deni searched her side of the woods. “What fun.”
Out of habit, Nate buried their food packages after eating, covering the fresh soil with leaves. “Let’s make a three-mile sweep around to the road so we can get a look at what they’re up to.”
She slipped her backpack on. “Yeah, let’s.”
~~~~
Nate hid in brush by the road and glassed the bridge with his binoculars. “They’re not working on the bridge. Most of them are gone. Must be hunting us.” He handed the binoculars to Deni.
“I think some of the trucks are gone.” She scanned the bridge and road behind it again. “Yep, I’m sure some of them are gone.”
Nate motioned for her to back away from the ditch and into the woods. They crawled a few yards before standing to walk. He got close enough to whisper in her ear. “We need to back off a couple miles and wait a few hours.”
She looked puzzled, but said nothing.
They walked through the forest for more than an hour. “Let’s stop here and talk,” he said. They sat on a limestone rock.
“What?” Deni looked hard at him. “I haven’t been able to figure out what you’re going to do next or what you’re thinking since Sam was killed. So please tell me.”
“Nothing mysterious, really. They can’t get much done on the bridge in an hour or so, and it’s obvious they have most men out looking for us. It’s just as obvious that they will patrol out at least as far as we can see and shoot. That means we didn’t want to be within a half-mile of the bridge. Might as well wait a while and rest.”
“Okay,” Deni said. “That makes sense. I wonder if you know how mysterious you’ve been acting since we got into this fight. You’re a different man.”
“Not really. I’m just falling back on my training. I’m in my killing mode. It frightened Brian the first time he saw me like this. I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but I intend to stop them from crossing, and I damn sure intend for us both to go home when it’s over.”
Deni shook her head. “I have no complaints. Sam’s death was no one’s fault but those men at the bridge, and neither of us have a scratch. So just keep doing what you’ve been doing. I would like a little warning before game time, though.”
“Okay. In a few hours, after they’ve swept both sides of the road as far as a mile from the bridge—if they’re even that energetic—we’re going to sneak back over there and do some one thousand-yard shooting.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Deni took her pack off and used it for a pillow, lying on the ground. "Wake me when you’re ready.”
Nate laughed.
Chapte
r 8
Deni could barely see a group of several dozen men working on the bridge. “I don’t know…this seems like a lot farther than before. Are you sure this is one thousand yards?”
“Fifteen hundred—I hope,” Nate said. “It’s hard to estimate distances this far, and any small amount I’m off in my estimate will mean a miss at this range. The bullets will be dropping fast. If I hit someone, it will be luck.”
“Let’s get closer, then.” She squinted and looked down the road. “No point in wasting ammo. We’re running short as it is.”
“Too dangerous. They know from experience we can reach out one thousand yards. So we’re back here this time. We can’t stay long either. Two, three shots and we’re gone. This is just a harassing measure to slow them down until tonight.”
“Another night raid?”
Nate kept his eyes down the road. “Not exactly.”
“What then?”
“I’ll tell you later.” He settled down for a shot.
Deni sighed and shook her head, then glassed the bridge. “What are you aiming for?”
“Those four men carrying the log. They’re in line and that gives me more leeway as far as elevation is concerned.”
He squeezed off a shot.
Deni started to say, “I think you—” but before she could finish, the second man from the near end of the log collapsed and the man next to him could no longer hold his end. He dropped the log and staggered to his left. Nate fired again.
“You took out the back window of that big truck,” Deni said.
He fired into the moving mass of men as they ran for cover. One fell, but crawled behind a pickup.
“Time to relocate,” Nate said. They crawled into the woods, then got up and ran fifty yards before slowing to a quiet walk.
When they stopped a mile away, Deni asked, “Now what?”
“Follow me. We need a better place for an ambush.”
She searched the woods around her, seeing only the wall of green. “You think they’re going to get serious about hunting us down?” She kept her voice low.
Nate moved through the woods with the fluid confidence of a lion on the hunt. “You bet. And we better be ready for them.”
“Or run,” Deni said.
Nate waited for her to come closer. “We have to stop them at the river. But if you want to go back and help the others get ready in case they get the bridge repaired, go now.”
Deni coughed. “Bullshit. I didn’t say that. I do not intend to leave you. I was just saying we could retreat for now and come back tonight.”
“That would be safer, but we need to slow their bridge repair as much as possible. There may be someone—maybe the military—chasing them. We don’t know how far behind they are, but if we can keep them on that side of the river long enough…”
“I understand all that,” Deni said. “The question is: are you willing to die to get it done?”
“If need be. This can’t be done without risk.”
She looked him in the eye. “As long as this isn’t about revenge for Sam.”
“I’m a little pissed about that, but I barely knew him. This is about stopping them before they cross, because we can’t stop them once they’re on this side. Sure, they might go on by the farm. But they may shovel that pile of dirt we left in the drive into the trench I cut and drive right up to the farm and take everything we have, leaving us with only what’s at Mel’s place. I can’t take that chance.”
“Okay.” She looked behind her, toward the dirt road. “We should get closer if we want to pick a fight today. I doubt they will come this far.”
“Maybe not,” Nate said. “But I think a small number of them will keep coming. They’ve had enough of us and realize now we’re not packing up and leaving—so they’ll come. They know there’s not many of us. They just have to kill us and then get that bridge repaired well enough to get those trucks and motorcycles across.”
He stopped talking when he heard a hog grunt and take off at a trot when it got a whiff of them. It crashed into palmettos.
Deni swung her carbine around and shouldered it as she turned and aimed in the direction of the sound.
“Hog,” Nate said. “Nice to know you’re alert, though.” He waited for her to turn to face him again. “We don’t want to take on the whole bunch at once. I’m hoping only three or four will come this far.”
“All right,” she said, “what about that rise over there? We can see better and there’s plenty of bullet-stopping cover.”
Nate smiled. “Great minds think alike. That’s where we’re heading.”
Deni motioned with her head. “Let’s go.”
~~~~
The sun was inching lower, and shadows stretched out long from tall trees. Nate thought they might not come, and it would be dark soon. He could not see Deni hiding in thick brush, but he knew where she was. It had been several minutes since his eyes caught a flicker of movement in a dappling of sunlight seventy yards back, in a stand of pines where shade darkened the emerald forest. It could have been a doe flicking flies with her tail or a squirrel jumping from tree to tree or a bird. It could have been a lot of things.
Nate pushed the safety off his rifle with the back of his trigger finger. There you are, you son of a bitch. Now, where are the others?
Two quick shots from Nate’s left told him Deni had found one of them. He saw movement on his end of the rise and aimed, waiting for a clear shot, not sure if it was man or animal. The first man had hit the dirt at Deni’s shots and disappeared, so Nate concentrated on the third man.
When shooting from behind a log alerted Nate of a fourth killer, he aimed for what he could see: the top three inches of his head. Punk wood fragmented and powdered, creating a brown puff of smoke above the log. The cloud drifted away in a light breeze, revealing brush painted red.
Deni continued to fire. Another man fell.
Not wanting to waste rifle ammunition on recon by fire, Nate pulled his revolver and fired into heavy brush where he was sure he had seen a muzzle flash, thumbing the hammer back, and firing single action. After four rounds, he could hear screaming between Deni’s shots. He holstered his revolver, crawled to another position in case someone had seen his muzzle flash in the darkening shade of the forest, and waited for another target.
All shooting stopped, but the man Nate had wounded still screamed.
A bullet shrieked by Nate’s head. He dropped behind a stump, then low-crawled to a big pine tree for cover.
Deni fired twice more.
They waited, eyes searching for danger.
The woods became silent in the dying afternoon. Except for the moaning from the man Nate had wounded, the scene would seem tranquil. Nate found the contrast between the peaceful woods and the tension storming within him surreal. The realization that Brian would never feel the same about a relaxing walk in the woods came over him in a flash. Brian had been hunted, and in the back of his mind, the woods would always be a battleground where a bullet could come from behind any bush and take his life. Never again would he enjoy the wonders of nature the way only a child could. He knew this because he had been through it himself, but at a much older age.
After fifteen minutes, Nate low-crawled to Deni. “Time to go.”
She hesitated. “Leave him?”
The man was still moaning.
“Yes,” Nate said. “We’ve done what we needed to. There might be more coming. Let’s go.” He started crawling.
Deni followed. After fifty yards, they stood and walked, taking their time, standing, listening, and looking more than walking. They made their way farther from the road, deeper into the forest.
Nate raised his right hand, singling to stop, then came back to her. She had been keeping ten yards behind for proper spacing, so they would not both be killed in an ambush.
“We’ll rest here and wait for dark,” he said.
Her face was rigid with tension. “That won’t be long; sun has gone down.”
He searched the woods while he talked. “There was nothing we could do for him but finish it. You know that. Then we would have had to live with that. Either way, it’s not a pretty picture.”
“I was just thinking you might want to put him out of it.” She turned and looked away. “Oh, hell, it doesn’t matter. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“Could have been putting on an act to lure us in. It wasn’t worth the—” He saw blood on her left arm. “Sit down. You’re bleeding.”
She glanced at her arm and then looked up at him. “Don’t make a big deal out of that, either. I’m okay.”
Peeling his pack off and with a worried look on his face, he said, “Sit down.”
“Jeez.” She took her pack off, then her long-sleeved shirt. “Don’t cry about it.” There was no log or rock to sit on, so she sat on the ground.
Nate examined it. “This is bad.”
“Bullshit. It’s only a half-inch deep. There are no blood vessels or nerves or bone involved.”
He sighed. “We’re not even close to the end of this fight. I was planning to swim the river just before daylight after I attack again. That’s out now. You have to keep this clean.”
“Get real.” Deni laughed. “I don’t believe you. Get your head on straight, for God’s sake.”
“My head is thinking just fine.” His voice rose. “We don’t have a thing to stop infection. I used what was left when Brian was shot.” He cleaned around the wound with an antiseptic-soaked two-inch square of gauze, dropped it, and soaked another to clean the wound itself.
Wincing, she turned her head away. “That’s enough. You’ll just make it bleed more.”
Nate rubbed harder. “Bleeding a little won’t hurt you. It’ll help clean it, in fact.”
“And I thought you were afraid I was in pain.”
He wrapped the wound with gauze and taped the ends. “It’ll get soaked with sweat. Nothing we can do about that. Keep it clean otherwise or you’ll be wishing you had.” He put his medical supplies back in his pack.
“I hope you’re through acting crazy.” She turned her back to him and put her shirt on. “You didn’t even look.”
