Wilderness

by Robert B. Parker

  He took a small compass out of his pack. "We'll head southeast," he said, "and keep the path on our left. That way we won't get lost in the dark."

  They moved as quietly as they could. It was slower going through the woods and it was dark before they were close to the campsite again.

  They could smell the harsh chemical smoke. He reached behind him in the darkness and took her hand. He heard human voices and they both stopped motionless. They listened. The voices went on but they were only voices. Newman couldn't hear meaning. He put his mouth against Janet's ear.

  "Can you hear them?"

  "Yes," she whispered, "but I can't hear what they're saying."

  "Me either."

  "Should we try for them now?"

  "No," he whispered. "There's four of them and two of us and it's dark.

  We want to get them when the odds are with us. When they're in clear sight and we're not. We don't know where all of them are. It could even be a trap."

  "Yes," she whispered. "You're right."

  They moved along through the woods, periodically crisscrossing the trail. Every few minutes Newman stopped and checked the compass, Janet holding the flashlight with her hand over the lens and her fingers split just enough to let a small sliver of light shine on the compass.

  The human voices faded, and soon the chemical smell. The night sounds of the woods and the smell of the forest were all there was.

  CHAPTER 27.

  They were exhausted when they stopped. They had not slept since they entered the woods. They had been on their feet since sunrise, moving through thick forest. They had eaten a handful of berries. He could hear water running over rocks and remembered how thirsty he was.

  "We'll stop," he said.

  Janet came to a halt behind him and stood motionless, her head hanging, numb with exhaustion.

  "We must be a mile or so below the camp now," Newman said. "We better sleep here or we'll fall over."

  Janet stood without sound. The moon was up. It filtered, nearly full, through the trees, and Newman could see dimly around him. The trail was just to his right. Across the trail were two enormous boulders, upended, carried along and dropped there in another geologic time by the glacier. He walked closer to the boulders. Janet didn't move.

  Between the rocks was a space five feet wide. Newman shone his flashlight into the opening. It ran back between the two boulders for ten feet before they pressed together to form a cul-de-sac. He stepped in and straightened. The boulders were higher than his head. He could still hear the water. He stepped out from between the rocks and listened. He stepped around the rocks. There was a stream. He wondered if it were the same one. It would have to curve back, he thought. But they do that, I imagine.

  He said, "Jan, you want a drink?"

  She came silently over and dropped onto the ground. They lay on their stomachs and drank with cupped hands from the stream. When they finished they lay together on the ground for a moment. Then he got up and reached his hand down to her.

  "Up," he said. "We'll sleep in those rocks. There's a nice place."

  She lay without moving until he reached down and put his hands under her arms and pulled her up. Between the rocks pine-needles had fallen from the overhanging trees and built up a thick soft layer.

  They shivered as they took off the packs.

  "Getting cold," he said. They both put on the down vests and the nylon pullovers. They each ate a granola bar. She lay down and went almost at once to sleep. He felt dizzy from exhaustion, but he forced himself to stand. He went out of the refuge and with the hatchet cut several large white-pine branches from a tree behind the boulders. He took them back between the rocks and arranged them at the entrance of the refuge to shield them. Then with the carbine beside him he lay down beside her and went to sleep almost at once.

  When he woke up it was raining. He looked at his watch, five thirty-six. Janet still slept motionless with her face on the pine-needles, her mouth open. The ground around him was still dry. It must just have started, he thought. // we get soaked we won't get dry.

  He looked out through the mouth of the refuge. Nothing moved on the trail or in the woods. Above, the sky was a uniform gray. He lay the carbine down against one of the boulders to keep the rain off it as much as possible. He unbuttoned the.32 from Janet's holster and slipped it into his pants pocket. She never stirred, her breathing steady and slow as she slept.

  He took the hatchet and went out from between the rocks, moving the pine branches aside to do so. He climbed into a white spruce that towered fifty feet above the boulders. Just above the level of the boulders he began to cut branches from the tree and drop them onto the top of the rocks. He worked for nearly an hour. The hatchet was sharp and the wood was soft. He got a thick mound of spruce branches in that time. Chris would make sure the ax was sharp, he thought.

  He slipped the hatchet back into his belt and dropped from the spruce onto the boulders. He began to lay the spruce branches in overlapping lines across the opening between the two rocks. Below him he saw Janet sit up and look up at him. It was raining harder.

  He said softly, "Good morning, bright eyes."

  She waved at him, sober-faced.

  He laid the spruce branches across the entire opening, stopping two feet short of the point where the boulders met. The boulders were somewhat lower in front than in back, and he pointed the tips of the spruce branches in the down slant direction.

  "Is the rain still coming in?" he said to her.

  "No," she said. "It's good, except at the end."

  He slid off the top of the boulder and went in under his spruce-branch thatch. It was cavelike now, and darker. Janet shivered. Her teeth were chattering. Newman gave her back the.32. Thunder rolled in the distance and several seconds later lightning flashed. Newman collected dry twigs and sticks, and using a wad of toilet paper to start it he lit a fire at the narrow end of the shelter where he had not laid the roof. He bent his body over the kindling, sheltering it from the rain as he lit the paper and fed the small flame till the sticks caught.

  There was a slight recess at the base of the rock, and the fire was partly shielded from the rain. The smoke crawled up along the rock and slid along the face of the boulder and drifted out of the two-foot space he'd left for it. He went outside and looked. Trees masked much of the upper part of the boulders and hung over the fire hole. The smoke thinned and disappeared in the trees. It wasn't visible from the trail.

  It's a risk, he thought, but it's worth taking. We can't get soaking wet and chilled. To do this we've got to be in good shape. He found a fallen tree and cut several lengths of firewood from it and brought it back in and put it on the fire. Reflecting off the rock the fire spread heat. Janet sat next to it hugging herself.

  "Coffee would be nice," she said.

  "I know it." "Let's split a granola bar," she said.

  "Okay."

  "Do you think the rain will slow them up?" she said.

  He chewed on his half of the bar. "I don't know. Depends whether they've found a way to get out of it, I should think." He sat near the open end of the shelter, the carbine in his lap, looking at the trail through the screen of white-pine branches.

  "Will they see the smoke?" she said.

  "It gets lost in the trees," he said. "They might smell it, but they won't know where it is."

  "I needed a fire," she said. "I was shaking when I woke up."

  "I know. I was freezing too."

  Outside the shelter the woods were silent. No bird sound. No insect noise. Nothing moved. The rain came steady and hard, dripping through the spruce branches in places. A bed of coals began to build under the fire as Newman fed it from time to time with more wood cut from the fallen tree. Nothing moved on the trail.

  "What do we do," Janet said, "when we see them?"

  "We shoot, or I do. You keep the pistol for back-up. It's not very accurate at any distance anyway. If we can get all four of them we're home free. If we can't we keep after them. E
ven if they get to the lake, remember they got no boats. It will take them a long time to walk around that lake."

  She nodded. The lightning came more swiftly after the thunder now. The storm was getting closer. Newman took a book from his pack and thumbed through it. Then he stood up.

  "Where're you going?" she said.

  "I'm starving. I'm going to see what we can get for food."

  "What's the book?"

  "A Field Guide to Survival," Newman said. "I slipped it in the pack before we left." "In case Chris got killed," she said.

  "Yes, or separated. It's got pictures of edible plants."

  "If we get out of this," she said, "you can open a Boy Scout camp."

  He nodded. "Here," he said, "you take the carbine, give me the.32.

  I'm just going around behind the rocks."

  He put the hood up on the nylon jacket, put the.32 in his pants pocket, and went out into the rain. In the stream behind the rocks were cattails. He pulled a dozen out, root, and all, and brought them back into the shelter. He gave Janet back the revolver and with his jackknife cut the roots off the plants and peeled them. Then he put the twelve tubers into the ashes of the fire.

  "Are they any good?" Janet said.

  "Book says they are sweet and delicious," Newman said.

  "I'll bet," she said.

  He settled back with the carbine, watching the trail while the cattail roots roasted in the coals. Occasionally he tested them with the blade of his knife to see if they were done, and finally, when the knife slid easily in, he decided they were. He poked them out of the ashes with the knife blade and gave six to Janet. They were too hot to handle so they let them lie on a flat rock while they cooled, and Newman stared at the trail.

  "You really mean that," Newman said, "about being tough because you had me to back you up?"

  "Yes."

  "I never fully got that sense, or the sense that you were aware of it." "I don't know why," she said. "It seems perfectly clear."

  "But you're always so manage-y. You're so…" he stopped and stared out at the rain-soaked trail beyond his screen of white-pine boughs, "so separate. You never seem at all dependent."

  "Because I don't hold your hand or lean on your arm or run on about how much I need you?"

  "Some of that wouldn't hurt," he said.

  "It's not the way I am."

  "Why not?"

  "I suppose it has something to do with fear, fear that if I'm dependent on anything or anyone I can't control my life. It's a control issue, as they say at the consciousness groups."

  "You can control me," he said.

  "That scares me too. It's like the old Groucho Marx joke. I wouldn't want to depend on anyone I can control."

  "Would you be more affectionate if you couldn't control me?"

  "Maybe."

  "But if you couldn't control me, wouldn't that scare you and make you hostile?"

  "Maybe."

  "Jesus Christ," he said.

  "I love you, you know," she said. "I love you and I am committed to this marriage and to you. If I don't show it the way you do, that doesn't make it wrong."

  "I know," he said.

  "If I should love you more, maybe you should love me less. The weight of your need is heavy. The pressure of your thwarted romanticism is not pleasant, and you don't miss any chance to remind me that I'm not loving enough."

  "I know."

  She picked up one of the cattail roots and bit into it. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. "Well?" he said.

  "Sweet and delicious," she said. She chewed it methodically and swallowed.

  He stabbed one with the blade of his jackknife and bit off half. He chewed.

  "Never trust a field guide," he said and ate the other half.

  "See," she said. "You don't like these damned roots and neither do I.

  But they're the best we've got and so we'll eat them and make the best of it."

  "Half a loaf is better than none?"

  She made a noncommittal gesture with her hands. "If you wish. The point is most of the time we enjoy each other very much. Be happy with that. Wanting more than you can have will spoil what you've got."

  He reached out with the knife blade and stabbed another root and ate it, chewing ostensively.

  "Right now," he said, "I want to kill four men."

  She didn't say anything and the rain came down in sheets.

  CHAPTER 28.

  The rain stopped at three-twelve in the afternoon. The sun did not appear and the temperature dropped slightly. At three-fifteen he said, "They'll come now; we better be out and in a good spot."

  "Why are you so sure?"

  "Because they must be freezing their ass and soaking wet and hungry as hell and the first chance they get to get the hell out of the woods and get back to civilization they'll take."

  "You don't think they'll be looking for us?"

  "I think they'll keep an eye out, but I'll bet now they want out. They know who we are. They can get us later."

  With the knife he scraped a hole in the floor of the shelter and kicked the coals of the fire into it and covered it with dirt. They slipped into the knapsacks. He looked around the small warm space once and then they left it. They went down the trail thirty yards to a place where a tree had fallen across it. They sprawled flat behind the fallen tree, to one side of the trail. Behind them the trail turned sharply east.

  He took out the compass and looked at it, turning it until he could read it. He looked southwest through the trees. Through a break in the trees he could see mountains.

  "Look," he said. "See the top of that mountain? It looks like sort of a cockscomb on top?"

  "It doesn't look like a cockscomb," she said.

  "Well whatever it looks like to you. Study it, get it imprinted. You want to keep walking so that the mountain is about half right of you.

  So that you'd half-turn your head so to see it. Halfway between straight ahead and directly to your right."

  "Okay." They said nothing else but lay still watching the trail.

  The wet woods dripped steadily.

  Frank Marriott came first. He wore a blue plaid shirt buttoned to the neck with the collar turned up. It was wet through and his hair was plastered to his skull. In his right hand he carried a revolver with a big handle. The one he had shot Hood with. It swung at his side now, barrel pointing toward the ground. His eyes moved right and left as he came, looking in the bushes. He was walking as if his feet hurt.

  Newman brought the carbine up and aimed. And waited. The blue plaid shirt seemed to enlarge as it sat on the splayed trident of the front sight. Wait, he thought. Wait. If you shoot now you'll only get one.

  Wait until there's more than one to shoot at. The blue shirt got bigger. Wait, wait, wait, wait, and his finger squeezed the trigger shut and the bullet made the material of the shirt jump as it hit Marriott in the chest. His finger squeezed again and Marriott fell backward. The gun with the big handle fell out of his hand. Behind him Richie Karl jumped for the woods to the left of the trail. Farther back the huge man and Adolph Karl stepped into the woods to the right and dropped to the ground.

  Newman said, "Run," and Janet and he scrambled on the ground toward the turn in the trail. Behind them Richie Karl raised the shotgun and fired over Marriott's body in the direction the shots had come from, pumping the shotgun as fast as he could, spraying the area with an ounce and a quarter of lead shot with each pump.

  As Newman and his wife reached the turn they both stood to run, and something slapped Newman in the back of the left arm. And tugged at the triceps. Then they were around the bend of the trail and running.

  Janet first, Newman behind her.

  "Easy," he said, "watch where you're running." She slowed. "They won't come charging after us." He slowed behind her. "They don't know where we are. Don't want to turn an ankle or sprain a knee or something."

  She slowed more and he slowed. They jogged for fifteen minutes, Newman listening always behind hi
m. "Okay," he said. And they stopped.

  "Did you see the others?" he said.

  "Yes, they were behind. But you got the one in front."

  "Bad way to do it," Newman said. "Stupid. Shouldn't have ambushed them from in front. If I'd been on the side or in an open area I could have got them all." "You did very well," she said.

  "Could have had them all. Now they'll be a lot harder."

  His left arm was numb. He put his hand on it and felt the warm wet.

  "God," he said, "they shot me."

  She looked at the back of his arm. "It's bleeding," she said. "Take off the coat and let me see."

  "Not here," he said. "We got to get under cover, out of sight. Where we can watch."

  "Let me tie something on it to cut down the bleeding," she said. "It won't take a minute." She took the first-aid kit from his knapsack, opened it, took out a spool of gauze bandage and wrapped it around his arm outside the sleeve. She wrapped it as tightly as she could and then cut the bandage with her hunting knife, split the end, and tied the bandage in place.

  "Okay," she said. "Let's go find a place."

  "On the way up. the trail crossed a little meadow, remember? A stream ran through it and there were a lot of wild flowers and the trees were all around it. It's where the hiking sign was."

  "I guess so," she said.

  "Okay. We'll go there and put the meadow between us and wait for them there."

  "You think they'll still come down this trail?"

  "It's the only way they know. They're city, like us. They have no food. They're wet and freezing. They must be scared. They have no maps. Probably no compass. The trail's all they have. I'd stick to it."

  "I hope you're right," she said.

  "Even if I'm not, it's all we can do."

  They walked for an hour and a half down the trail. The numbness wore out of Newman's arm. It began to throb. It was nearly dark when they reached the meadow. They crossed it and turned right along the edge of the woods and went a third of the way around the meadow and settled into a small hollow inside the cover of the woods.

  Janet took the first-aid kit from her pack and placed it beside her on top of the fallen tree behind which they lay. She unwrapped the bandage on his arm, and with her knife she carefully cut the fabric on his jacket and shirt away from the wound.