by Chuck Dixon
The wind and current were on their side for once. The only needed to paddle as much as necessary to keep them on the northerly course around the island. They stayed close to shore in case they saw a sail on the horizon. It took most of the day, but they drew up into a cove close to the foot of the rise. The cove was nestled in a wide sheltered beach where the shoreline curved sharply eastward before continuing north again.
The Rangers put in and concealed the raft in a copse of trees and risked a campfire to warm up beanie wienies with crackers crushed into them. They lay back on sand still warm from the sun as night stole over the sky.
The comet was more pronounced against the moonless night. It hung motionless above them, though it was traveling through space at sixty miles a second.
“You know, as fucked up as this is, it’s pretty cool,” Jimbo said.
“You going native, on me again, Cochise?” Dwayne said.
“Yeah, you’d be liking it more if someone else was here instead of me.”
“Maybe we’ll find an ancient little hottie for you while we’re here.”
Jimbo farted long and loud in answer to that.
THEY CLIMBED TO the top of the high point the next day. It was only a few hundred feet to the peak, and the trees gave way to rocky ground. From there they could see the entire island. The curve away north that formed the cove they’d camped in was actually the base of a long peninsula that led away north. A spine of rocky outcroppings described the narrow strip of land.
Jimbo’s feet were bare. His sneakers were sucked off when he hit the water on insertion. He didn’t even own a pair of shoes until he was twelve. His soles were hard from running around the reservation growing up. Even so, he got a cut on his heel from a sharp edge of volcanic rock. He sat down to apply antiseptic and a patch of moleskin from the bag he wore on his hip.
“We’ll have to get you some sandals,” Dwayne said. “You can go Roman.”
“And a toga to match like Caroline wanted us to wear.”
Dwayne shielded his eyes and looked north over the sea. The sunlight bounced off the wavetops in copper hues.
“Shit,” Dwayne said with a grin.
“What?” Jimbo said.
“This doesn’t look familiar to you?”
“Why should it?”
“Picture it if the sea levels were higher.”
Jimbo took in all the island he could see from their vantage point. The curving peninsula. The half-moon cove. The shoreline to the north visible from where they stood.
“It’s Nisos Anaxos,” Jimbo said.
“Yeah. Those rocks on the peninsula are the islands we saw a few days ago. This high point is the place we picked for our OP,” Dwayne said.
“The hill eroded away, leaving the rocks. The water level is lower now.”
“Or volcanic activity changed the ocean floor since then. Since now, I mean. We did something right for once.”
“That means the Raj is anchored right out there. Or going to be anchored someday.” Jimbo pointed to the deep blue water off the cove.
The following day the Rangers improved their situation. They made a better job of securing and concealing the Zodiac. They tied it down under a shelf of rock and covered the opening with dry brush. Then they humped their gear up to the top of the peak. They strung a camo net tarp for shade and cover. It was in dappled gray shades and would blend with the surrounding rocks. Jimbo used a camp saw to take down the tops of any pines around them that obscured their view. They set up a solar panel for recharging their electronics.
When the hide was done, they had a clear three-sixty view of the island and surrounding seas. They were also fully concealed from sight. They’d take turns on watch, but there was no real urgency. Any sail they spotted would take its sweet time getting to NisAx, which is what they took to calling the island.
That evening, Dwayne’s transmitter pinged. He rolled off his ground sheet and picked it up. The audio transmission was squawky static. But the text transmission came in clear.
OPA! WELCOME TO THE GOLDEN AGE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION! YOUR STAR FIELD IMAGES PLACE YOU AT 27 APRIL 240 BC. ANY LUCK DETERMINING YOUR EXACT LOCATION? TIMESTAMP IMAGE PLACES YOU IN PROXIMITY OF NA. WEATHER IMPROVED? IS COMET VISIBLE?
The message read like Caroline.
Dwayne texted back the good news that they were on the right spot. The 27th was two days ago. That made today the 29th for them. They were safe inside the window for the arrival of the treasure ship. He texted that the island’s topography was different here and attached photos Jimbo took of the northern peninsula and cove, along with more shots from the hide.
“Take a look,” Jimbo said. He handed Dwayne the night-vision scope he had brought along for his rifle. Through the scope, Dwayne could see a swirling clump of mist out on the otherwise clear sea. It was the field opening that was allowing the two-way transmissions to happen. It was comforting to see it spreading there over the water. It was their only way out of here and back to the world they knew.
The field held for twenty more minutes, and data were exchanged. A week had passed in The Now since they’d left. The National League won the All-Star Game. Boats made chili, and half the crew was sick from it. Parviz and Quebat ate it but were fine. Caroline added a message just for Dwayne before the transmission ended.
The ice-cold cloud dissipated on the water and the Rangers were alone again.
THEY TOOK INVENTORY the next day.
There were thirty days of food and three more days of water. Six if they stretched it. There had to be groundwater or a spring where the trees were thickest at the center of the island. Until they found it, they’d collect water from the regular rains that swept the island. Failing that, they’d construct a solar still.
The Rangers settled in for what could be a long watch. The ship bearing Praxus and the Phoenicians could arrive tomorrow or a month from now. They took shifts in the hide while the other slept or explored or read. They each brought Kindles packed with books and articles on the region and the history of the period they were in. Back on the Raj, they’d loaded up on intel but being here on the spot increased their curiosity.
“Knowing is half the battle,” Jimbo said. “Where’s that from?” Dwayne said.
“Didn’t you watch GI Joe cartoons when you were a kid?”
“You mean the toys?”
“I joined the Army because of those cartoons. I wanted to be a badass like Snake Eyes,” Jimbo said.
“I’m sorry I know that now,” Dwayne said.
Jimbo swore he could smell water just like a horse could. He proved it later in the day when he followed a game trail to where a natural spring bubbled up in a pool further inland. His arrival startled some tiny deer watering at the edge.
Dwayne walked the sand out onto the peninsula. The beach was narrow there. It was nothing more than a huge sand bar. The sea to the east was shallow, and he could walk almost a hundred yards out before the water reached his knees. He had to keep moving. His prolonged weight on the sand sucked his feet in, and he didn’t want to lose his sneakers as Jimbo had.
The water was like glass, and he could see to the bottom. It was white sand and shell. Armies of crabs moved away as he approached. Schools of fish darted and swooped all around him. A four-foot shark glided close enough to touch. As the depth increased, the floor was carpeted with thick seagrass. Dwayne saw a jellyfish moving through the dancing strands. It could be the first of many, and he didn’t feel like dealing with the stings. He retreated back to the shore. At the hide, he told Jimbo about the fish.
“I am bored off my ass. Maybe I’ll do some surf-casting tomorrow,” Jimbo said.
There was a full fishing kit in the survival pack of the Zodiac: a telescoping rod, reel, hooks, and two thousand yards of monofilament line. Jimbo assembled it all and walked down the long beach. He stood in the shallows along the cove and threw lines baited with clam strips into the surf. He had three mackerel and a long pickerel gleaming on the sand behind him within ten minutes.
Dwayne took the first day watch and kept an eye on the sea around them. The sunlight off the wave tops was painful even through his shades. He pulled the bill of his ball cap lower and sipped hot coffee. He glanced down to see Jimbo’s progress only to see his fellow Ranger hopping out of the surf on one foot, using the fishing rod for support.
Jimbo stepped on some kind of fish concealed in the loose sand. Its spines punctured the sole of even his leather-tough foot. The bleeding holes were already swelling closed. Dwayne moved fast to work the barbed spines out of the flesh with the point of his combat knife. Jimbo took it without making a sound.
It was most probably a weever fish that Jimbo stepped on. The first aid was simple. Dwayne made a sink by digging a hole in the sand and lining it with a groundsheet. He heated water and poured it into the hole, then had Jimbo soak his foot in it. The heat would neutralize the venom, but the poison was already going to work. Jimbo’s foot and ankle swelled and turned an angry color. That night he spiked a fever. By morning, the area around the punctures was cracked and seeping yellow pus. The swelling reached his knee. His skin was hot to the touch. The stoic Pima was suffering but did not complain. Dwayne could see it in his eyes. Jimbo was hurting.
“You’re allergic,” Dwayne said.
29
Bad Fish
“WHO KNEW?” JIMBO said. He was shaking from chills.
“We have to medevac your ass, bro.”
“Fuck that shit.”
“Sorry. My call, Jim.”
Dwayne tapped out a text update and set it to repeat. He carried Jimbo down the slope to the beach in a fireman’s carry. He spent the day setting up a temporary camp and preparing the raft. When the field opened, he only had a thirty-minute window max to get Jimbo and the raft out into the vapor cloud and back aboard the Raj moored three thousand years away on the other side.
He kept Jimbo as comfortable as he could while waiting for the ping. Dwayne wrapped him in blankets when he was chilled and doused him with cold seawater when he was hot. Jimbo was barely conscious most of the time. The knee joint vanished as his leg swelled larger and larger.
It was full dark when the transmitter pinged. The ping was followed by a text.
STAY PUT. COMING TO YOU.
Dwayne locked on the spreading white cloud just beyond the breakers. The island was bigger now than it would be, but the nearness of the field meant that the Raj was pulled in tighter to the shore than it was for the first insertion. He heard a whining noise coming from the heart of the mist. The whine turned to a growl and the prow of the Raj’s long motorized inflatable broke from the fog heading for shore.
Dwayne met the boat at the surf and Caroline leapt out. She was in cutoffs and a Manchester United football jersey. Boats was manning the tiller, with a hand to the twin outboards.
“Jesus fuck, that was a ride!” Boats shouted. “I feel like hammered shit!”
“I’ll need help with Jimbo,” Dwayne said. “He’s not ambulatory.”
Caroline helped Dwayne pull the boat ashore while Boats dropped to all fours and heaved up his guts in the receding surf.
Boats recovered and trotted up the beach after Dwayne and Caroline. The ex-SEAL and ex-Ranger carried the unconscious Jimbo down to the inflatable and loaded him on board. Boats climbed in as Caroline let go the line she’d secured to a peg driven in the sand.
“Who’s going and who’s staying?” Boats called.
“Take Jim. I’m staying,” Dwayne said.
“So am I,” Caroline said.
“The hell you are!” Dwayne turned to her, but she was already backing up the sand away from the surf. She had a bag over her shoulder that Dwayne had not seen her toss out of the boat.
“We don’t have time for this!” she called back. “Get to the Raj, Boats! You have to go now!”
Boats revved the outboards and let the tide carry him back to the line of white breakers. “I know what to do for your friend!” he hollered as he turned the prow about. He gunned the twin motors and skipped the boat over the swells until the dense mist swallowed him.
THEY DIDN’T TALK until they reached the hide. “Before you start,” she said before he could start. “You couldn’t stay back here alone, and there isn’t anyone else, is there?”
He decided to give it up. Dwayne hated her being here and hated even more that she was right.
THE NEXT MORNING, they saw a sail against the sky.
30
Alabama Again
“YOU NEVER WORRY about worms?” Lee Hammond said.
“What worms you talking about?” Chaz Raleigh said.
The big old buck was an eight-pointer and would dress out at one-twenty minimum. Chaz had nailed it on the fly with an old .303 bolt action that used to belong to his dad. A heart shot dropped the buck in its tracks. Instant kill meant sweet meat.
“Hunting out of season. You know, when it’s warm,” Lee said.
“Deer got worms all year round. Body temp of a deer doesn’t change with the weather. I thought you said you hunted?”
“With my uncles every winter. When it’s cold. Too cold for worms.”
“Never too cold for worms inside a deer, dickhead,” Chaz said and hauled on the line he’d tied around the buck’s back hooves and slung over a branch. He slit the throat clean and let it bleed out a while. He gutted it and tossed the organs aside.
“You have coyotes here?” Lee said.
“Some. Wild dogs, mostly,” Chaz said.
“Your uncle doesn’t have a dog.”
“He was K-9 in Vietnam. His dog stepped on a mine. Uncle Red said he could never own a dog again.”
“So, he ask you to leave the guts for the packs?”
“Naw. I just do it because I’m a lazy fucker,” Chaz said. He laid out a tarp and lowered the hull of the deer down onto it. He was wrapping the carcass when the cell on his belt beeped three times.
“That’s Red’s ADT alert,” Chaz said as he ran back toward the farmhouse.
Twin explosions sounded through the trees. Shotgun blasts, one after the other. Chaz pushed rounds into the modified Enfield’s box magazine as he ran with Lee close behind him.
They reached the break in the tree line at the back of the barn in time to see a car neither of them recognized driving away down the gravel drive. Chaz raised the rifle to sight after it. He put a silver dollar sized hole through the trunk lid before it slewed around a curve and behind the trees. Lee reached out and pulled the barrel down as Chaz was working the bolt. Chaz glared at him before turning to run to the house.
The screen door hung broken from the hinges. The wood was frayed around it where double-ought buck tore through it. Uncle Red stood leaning on the kitchen table sucking air in shallow gasps. The double-barrel, still smoking, lay on the linoleum.
Red’s eyes were wide. There was no sign of injury on him. A stroke or his heart. It had to be. Whoever visited the old man had stressed him to this state.
Chaz pulled open the drawer where his uncle kept his meds. He popped a bottle and placed two nitro tabs under Red’s offered tongue. Lee got him a glass of water from the tap. They helped him into a chair.
Chaz sat by him and spoke soothing words, kind words that only his uncle could hear. He held his ear close to his uncle’s mouth. He held his uncle’s hand in his and listened.
“Man with green eyes. Asking about you. Asking about your friends.”
“You going to be all right, Red?”
“Don’t worry about me. Go do what you got to.”
“I’ll call Tracy.”
“No need, son,” Red said, his voice gaining strength. “She’s on the ADT too. She’ll be calling. Just leave the phone by me.”
“What now?” Lee said.
Chaz was standing at the rifle case in the dining room. He pulled an AR-15 out of its place and pocketed some magazines.
“Now we go after the fucker.” Chaz hit the door.
“He’s got a fifteen-minute head start on us,
” Lee said and made for his Explorer after Chaz.
“He thinks he does,” Chaz said, shouldering Lee aside and tossing his rifle in the back seat. He plucked the keyring from Lee’s hand.
“I’ll drive,” Chaz said.
THE EXPLORER GROUND down a dry wash that was choked with berry bushes and sumac. Chaz had to be driving from memory because Lee couldn’t see anything beyond the hood for the wall of green rushing to meet them. Brush slapped the windshield and scraped down the side panels. Chrome went flying. A side mirror snapped off and hung there, then tore away. A low tree limb starred the windshield. Lee gripped the dash with one hand and held an arm over his head, braced against the roof. Even strapped in, he was banging on the top of the cab. Now he knew what the candy inside a piñata felt like.
Lee thought of telling Chaz to slow the fuck down. Only Chaz would never have heard a word of it. The man was leaning on the wheel, his face hard and eyes seeing something only he could see.
The Explorer burst out onto a roadway in an explosion of flying leaves and bark. Chaz cranked the hand brake, and the big SUV came to a sliding stop facing back toward a curve in the road.
The rental sat on the curve with the driver door open and engine running.
Chaz and Lee left the Explorer athwart the roadway and walked swiftly toward the idling car. Chaz had the AR-15 up tight to his shoulder and the front sight trained on the car. Lee had his long slide .45 in his fists and swept either side of the car as he moved to flank the passenger side.
They reached the car. Empty. The road on one side was a ten-foot escarpment, rising up from the shoulder. On the other side was a rusted guardrail. Beyond that, the ground fell away to a creek bed below. It was the same car. The hole punched in the trunk made a messy exit through the rear seat. There was no sign of blood. No sign that anyone had left the road for the woods. No sign of anything or anyone.
