Adrian's War

by Lloyd Tackitt

  Wolfgang gathered the uninjured men who had just returned and picked out several more from the camp. They armed up and followed Wolfgang into the woods again, entering at the same spot as before. Using long sticks they slowly and methodically began clearing the area in front of them as they walked deeper into the woods where Adrian had disappeared. Wolfgang was intent on finding Adrian; it didn’t matter how long it took or how many men he lost in the process. If he didn’t find Adrian and kill him, he was going to lose all the men, and soon. The only reason they didn’t desert him now was because they were afraid to go into the woods. They were stuck in the camp.

  The snow was covered with tracks. The beltway that the roving guards used was useless for tracking. There were so many tracks inside it that the snow was nearly worn away. Wolfgang went deeper into the forest, heading in the opposite direction of the tracks. Adrian watched from a distance. He noticed that Wolfgang was taking a slow and steady approach to this business. He was leading his men in a wide line as they looked for tracks. Whenever one of the men spotted something everyone stopped where they were while Wolfgang went to investigate. If it was nothing important they continued the way they were going, but if it was interesting then the whole line shifted to center on the new track and followed in whatever direction Wolfgang thought it was going. It was a good procedure, and one that would eventually work if it didn’t snow again. It also gave Adrian ample opportunity to ambush and shoot more men. However, there was a problem now: Wolfgang wouldn’t run away like his men had in the past. It was Adrian’s fault, of course. He had pushed Wolfgang to the point that running away was no more appealing than moving forward—but moving forward had a shred of hope attached to it. Wolfgang would be willing to lose all of these men, and to summon more and lose them too. Now, if Adrian shot at the men, they would turn and follow the arrow’s path, find his fresh tracks, and soon they’d be on close on his trail.

  It didn’t look like it was going to snow anytime soon. He was now the hunted, perhaps because he had pushed too hard. It didn’t matter why at this point. The problem was a tactical one. Attack or retreat? Both options had pros and cons. Attacking would take out more men; perhaps they would break and run, perhaps not, but more men out meant more men out. Retreating, on the other hand, meant he was far less likely to be found, and would be able to come back when the conditions were in his favor. He could return and do more damage, demoralize them further. Realistically, it was time to retreat and wait. He had created a great deal of havoc and damage in the past few days. He could afford to wait for better weather conditions before striking again.

  Adrian began moving away from the men toward a frozen creek not too far away. He would walk up the ice, leaving no tracks. When he reached the timberline he would find the band of windswept rocks that would help him to move without tracks across country, then he would go down another frozen stream, cross to yet another stream, and move back up. Once he did this enough times he would lose the men following him. Then he could hole up in a temporary shelter, build a fire, eat bear pemmican, and rest. He could use the sleep. When a storm came in he would move back down and pick off a few more men, set a few more traps. It was a good plan.

  Adrian reached the stream. The ice was half frozen and slushy. He couldn’t walk on it; he would sink into it and leave tracks in it. The ice would freeze again after dark, making the tracks last for days. He kept on moving. He needed to go on to the next stream over. It was smaller, and would be better ice. He did the best he could to hide his tracks in between. Brushing them out with a pine bough did not work, it just made a mess of the snow that anyone could see. He quickly realized that speed was going to serve him better than trying to hide his tracks down here. He might hide a few, but there would be too many remaining that would be found. Adrian picked up the pace.

  The next stream was in better shape. The ice was solid enough to walk on without leaving tracks. He knew that Wolfgang would find this point sometime today, maybe late in the evening. They would probably camp here and follow on in the morning. They couldn’t follow him in the dark. Adrian could move well in the dark. He followed the ice all the way up to the timber line, and then some. When he found an outcropping of rock he followed it to the South a hundred yards, leaving only small edges of tracks here and there. Then he turned and came back to the ice without leaving a trace, and followed it another half-mile. This time he left the ice on a small shelf of rocks. It would be extremely difficult to walk on the shelf without leaving tracks. The East bound trail had been a diversion. He was Westbound and he didn’t think they would believe that he could take this route and leave no trace. Adrian believed that they would lose his trail, or find the false trail and follow it, but they would never find the true trail. Adrian hadn’t been wrong in a long time; he was overdue for an error.

  Chapter 15

  ABOVE THE TIMBERLINE THE SKY was an open, vast field of intense blue. A few clouds highlighted the sky’s color with their contrasting white. It was a bluebird day. Out in the sun it was warm, as long as he kept moving. He had to stop and remove clothing to keep from sweating. Carrying the clothing was a bother as it occupied one arm that could be better used to keep his balance. Adrian finally stopped, and using leather cords, made the buffalo robe into a bundle he slung over his back like a bedroll. It changed his center of balance to have that weight on his back, and that took getting used to. Still, it was better to have both hands free. Keeping his footing on slippery rocks was difficult business. Falling would be seriously bad up here. Once he started rolling downhill he might not stop for a long time, and bouncing off of rocks was a surefire way to get badly injured.

  It felt good to be out of the dark forest and in the bright sunlight. How beautiful the view was up here. Long vistas of snow covered mountains and valleys greeted his eyes whichever direction he looked. He hadn’t realized that he had been getting claustrophobic down in the forest, where all he could see was trees and brush and occasional meadows. It was dark in the forest. Even when the sun was at its highest it barely penetrated down to the forest floor. Daylight was short too; the mountains cut the morning and evenings off abruptly. Getting out from the dense trees for a while was a much-needed break. He was enjoying the view, and moving along nicely.

  He thought that he had a solid day-and-a-half head start on Wolfgang. This time of year that should be more than enough. It rarely went more than three days without snowing some, but it hadn’t snowed in many days now. Snow was due. Once snow returned, he would return with it, and wreak havoc on the camp. He was the dog of war, and he had been let slip. Adrian smiled at this twist on one of his favorite quotes. Adrian hadn’t smiled at anything except his enemy’s misery in a long time. A true smile of pleasure felt strange, made him feel peculiar. He stopped smiling abruptly. A man at war had no time for such things. He returned to thinking about his next steps.

  His very next step was to get to the nearest frozen stream without leaving any tracks leading to it. He concentrated on placing his foot on the next spot that would provide solid footing and not leave a track. Then he concentrated on the next one, and so on. It was a good way to move, as quickly as caution would allow. His senses were tuned to his surroundings. He heard a distant eagle’s cry, smelled the sun-warmed rocks. He stopped occasionally and looked all around him, searching for anything that didn’t belong. Then he went back to picking his stepping spots.

  Adrian reached the frozen stream after noon. He had been steadily traveling since the day before. He had traveled by moonlight most of the night, stopping only when the moon went too low to give adequate light. He had slept about an hour, huddled in his bearskin robe. No fire could be built up here, it would be seen for miles. When he got to the stream, he sat down to eat. The sun at this altitude could turn skin into burnt meat. To help prevent sunburn, he rubbed the fatty bear pemmican on his face, hands, arms, and neck—any part of him that might be exposed to the high concentration of ultra-violet light in the thin atmosphere. He ate more of the
pemmican, not out of hunger, but for fuel. He enjoyed the meat tremendously, but the high altitude made his appetite disappear. He ate for fuel, knowing his body needed it.

  Adrian began moving down the frozen stream. This was more difficult than going uphill on the ice. When going uphill, he leaned forward into the slope, which gave him a better center of gravity. If he fell it would only be a short distance and his feet would be toe down, making it easier to stop a slide. Going downhill was the opposite. He leaned backwards slightly to prevent his center of gravity from getting too far ahead of him, causing a loss of balance. If he fell, he fell further, and his feet would be toe up. There was the danger of a runaway slide down the ice, which he wouldn’t be able to stop before he had gained so much momentum that stopping became a danger in itself. It was an effort that required total concentration. Total concentration was dangerous when a man was being hunted. It meant that he wasn’t able to watch out for his enemies, who Adrian believed were far behind. They weren’t. Not all of them.

  He had forgotten about the men who were out hunting elk. They should have been far to the East where the elk herds were, but these men were not good hunters. Some of them thought hunting was a matter of randomly walking around hoping to spot something to shoot. Amateurs were the most dangerous people in the world. They did not do what they were supposed to do. They didn’t know what they should be doing and therefore could be doing almost anything. They were unpredictable.

  Adrian felt a stunning impact on the side of his head but no pain, vaguely heard the distant gunshot, as he fell and began sliding down the ice. “Shit,” he thought. “That rifle shot will bring Wolfgang on the run, right to me. I lost all that time.” Adrian was trying to check his slide. He needed to control his stop, not end up crushed against a boulder. The creek turned slightly to the right, but Adrian managed to keep going straight, over the creek bank and into a deep snow drift. He came to a stop buried in the snow.

  He had bored a hole into the snow as he was driven into it, but it collapsed behind him. He was suffocating and could barely move his arms. Fortunately he had covered his head like a boxer with his arms in reaction to the sound of the bullet. He was now able to move his forearms back and forth, clearing a breathing space in front of his face. He had to keep moving; he had no idea how far away the shooter had been, but he was sure the man was rushing towards him as fast as he could. Adrian had to get out of this snow, or he would smother or freeze or get shot dead, whichever came first—and whichever came first was coming fast.

  It was difficult to move his arms, but the snow wasn’t tightly packed or more than a few feet deep. He kept moving his arms until he had cleared out a larger space around his head. He was disoriented. He couldn’t tell which way was up. He felt dizzy from the blow to the head. He did not know which way to dig to get out. If he started digging in front of him, he might only dig deeper down into the bank. “Calm down. Think.” He took three deep breaths then recalled hearing a story of a man in a similar situation. He did what that man had done. He made a small snowball and dropped it to see which way it fell—right into his face. He began digging upward and soon felt his hand break the surface. For all he knew his assailant was standing there watching his hand. If not, he soon would be.

  Adrian dug as rapidly as he could and pulled himself out of the snow. It was a huge effort. His head pounded and ached and he was dizzy and becoming nauseous, but he drove himself to superhuman effort. It was extreme effort or death, and Adrian wasn’t thinking about giving up, not now. His grief had slipped behind him somewhere in his insane war and all could think about was getting out so he could kill the man who had shot him, before that man shot him again.

  Adrian stood up and was half free of the snow drift. He reached down and brought out his robe that had fallen off his back while he was trapped in the snow. He didn’t have a gun. He was unarmed, facing a man with a rifle, in open country. He looked around and didn’t see anyone. He closed his eyes and recreated the slam against his head and the shot he heard. About one second apart. The man was close, would be closer by now, much closer. Adrian stomped the snow down hard under him and threw the robe down beside the snowdrift, squatted down, and pulled loose snow back in on top of him. He held his stone club tightly in his right hand. The robe would draw the shooter up close. He would see it, along with the disturbed snow, and come to investigate. He would be cautious but curious.

  When he got close enough Adrian would jump out of the snow from the squat position and try to take him. It could work. It had to work—it was all he had and the only plan that would come to his dizzy head. He waited for what seemed years, his legs cramping, his lungs heaving, his head spinning and nausea trying to sweet talk him into vomiting. He waited and waited. Finally he heard slow footsteps crunching in the snow. He bit the inside his cheek to distract from his painfully bent legs. The steps came closer. He heard the man clear his throat. He was close. He heard the man take a step closer.

  Adrian shot up out of the snow bank and launched himself like a rocket in the direction of the sounds. He was already swinging the club in midair at the point he guessed the man’s head to be. He was close. He blasted the man’s left shoulder, crushing bones into gravel. The man screamed once as he dropped the rifle to grab his destroyed shoulder, and Adrian smashed him a backhanded return blow into the forehead and out the back of his skull. Brains, blood, bones, and hair rained into the snow behind the man as his body fell straight down. He was dead instantly.

  Adrian fell onto his back into the snow as the trajectory of his launch carried him past the man’s body. Adrian jumped up, grabbed the rifle, and hit the snow rolling. The hunters were often in pairs. He had to find the other man before he took a shot at Adrian. He rolled over and over to avoid being an easy target, then came to his feet looking around wildly. No one in sight. Adrian called out in a deliberately hoarse voice, “Got him, over here!” He waited—no response. He climbed a boulder and lay on top of, looking around. He saw the man’s tracks coming in, and only his alone. Adrian was in luck, only the one hunter. He knew the shot had been heard by Wolfgang and that they would be coming here as fast as they could. Adrian figured that he had two hours, maybe three.

  he had to get moving. First he sat down and carefully explored the side of his head with his cold fingers. It felt like the bullet had not penetrated into bone, but had scraped along the bone hard on the side of the head and gone on past, tearing up skin, leaving behind a concussion. Adrian’s eyesight was blurry, more so in his right eye. His ears were ringing and he had the worst headache he could ever remember having. His military medical training told him he had a severe concussion and it would become worse as the brain swelled. He would be out of action for a week, maybe more; and that depended on him getting to some place safe where he could wait while his body healed. He had to move, find a good hiding spot. He had to find it fast because the swelling of the brain would soon cause him to lose consciousness. Had to push himself hard, but not leave tracks. He had to do it all quickly. He told himself all this, but it was several long minutes before his body responded.

  It was like sending signals down a faulty wire. His muscles were receiving static; they didn’t know what to do with the garbled information his brain was sending out. Somewhere beneath his conscious level the primitive part of his brain took over, sending clear signals. He stood up slowly and shakily, put his robe on, then took the rifle and ammo and the man’s canteen. He began to slowly and cautiously move down the frozen creek, downhill, looking for a place to hide. This was the most danger he had been in since attacking the grizzly bear.

  Chapter 16

  ADRIAN STUMBLED FOREVER IN A white haze of pain and nausea. He fell on the ice so many times that he wasn’t sure if he was crawling and occasionally stood up, or was walking but fell often. He just kept moving down the ice, into the woods, down the ice, down the ice. His only coherent thoughts were “down the ice” “hiding place” “move, move, move, move…”. He was running on raw i
nstinct as his brain swelled.

  He had been clawing his way down the frozen stream for two hours, occasionally stopping to look for a place to hide. He knew that Wolfgang would be close behind somewhere. Even though he wasn’t leaving tracks, there was no place else they needed to look. His tracks led to the ice and until he stepped off the ice, they wouldn’t need to look elsewhere and they could travel fast. Adrian was freezing cold, his hands completely numb, his feet long forgotten. Light snow was falling—not good. He needed to find shelter, now.

  Ahead he saw an overhanging creek bank in a bend. The overhanging earth was held together with tree roots. It formed a bit of overhead shelter as it hung out over the ice. Adrian crawled under it and looked up. He saw a large hole under the root ball into the bank. Roots were hanging down in front of the hole, making it near invisible. Only by crawling right up to it had Adrian seen it. He crawled closer. The hole seemed to go back like a cave. It was a large hole, big enough for Adrian to crawl into on his hands and knees, with a little room to spare. In his last moments of consciousness, he was careful not to disturb anything; he didn’t leave any dirt on the ice. He crawled into the hole and disappeared from the world. It was warmer in the hole. Not warm by any stretch of the imagination, but warmer. He crawled further in as he the lights in his head began to dim. “It’ll make a good grave if nothing else,” was his last conscious thought.

  His primitive brain took over again, forcing his body further back into the small cave until it felt warmth. It snuggled his body up against the source of the warmth as his last, tiny vestiges of consciousness slipped away. Adrian was curled up against the rump of a hibernating pregnant bear. The fact that he had been eating absolutely nothing but bear meat and fat for weeks, had rubbed bear fat on his skin, was wearing a robe of bear hide, all made him smell like a bear. The smell of a human in that cave would have eventually awakened the bear; the smell that he exuded did not. Lying against the bear’s rump warmed the only cool spot on the bear, making the bear more comfortable. The bear provided enough heat to keep Adrian alive. While he was unconscious and not moving, he was healing.