6 Miles With Courage (7 page)

The last of the ribbons went very well for Ryan. His greatest discomfort, other than the leach bite, was that he felt as though he were a walking “blood-bag” to the various biting insects. This misery was soon dispelled by the shallow water giving way to dry ground. The dank and dense gum tree swamp gave way to a more spacious and airy cluster of large cypress trees. This, together with the fact that the ground was rising, told Ryan that he was about to come upon a large body of water. With the GPS meter ticking down to 2.1 miles—he crested the rising grade and stood looking in awe at the mighty and majestic
Oklawaha River!

“
Yes, I have made the river, and feel that
breeze
!” Ryan said to the wind blowing in from the river.

He
is on one side of a seventy five foot wide dry and level embankment, perhaps eight feet above the river. A few feet in front of him lay a well-worn path which runs off to the left and to the right. He walks across the path to the other side of the embankment and stops to look down. It is thirty feet further to the river, ten feet of slope to the water’s edge, and then twenty feet of large towering cypress trees before reaching the river channel. The river made a soothing lapping sound, breaking on the toe of the slope. Ryan is set back from view of any immediate boat traffic. As his father had told him it would be difficult if not impossible to be seen and heard from a passing boat.

His father had never mentioned the
well-worn path along the embankment. That is because his father believed that it was made by people looking for a place to fish or hunt, but it was not a trail made by humans. It was a game trail used by every imaginable creature that lived along the river basin. In the daytime, except for the occasional wild pig or otter, it was mostly deserted. But in the nighttime as Ryan was soon to find out, the path became a highway.

The Oklawaha River is a winding odyssey of wild and scenic beauty. It was used in the 19
th
century for transportation by steamboat. These steamboats were narrow, tall, and luxurious. They carried such dignitaries as, Ulysses S. Grant, and Thomas A. Edison as they made their way to the Silver Springs. Today—with its abundant wildlife—it is used for fishing, hunting, and canoeing, as well as for sightseeing tours.

Ryan
wants so much to take in the view and to get to know his camp area but he is disciplined enough to know it will have to wait until after the firewood is gathered. He picks a spot near the river side of the embankment, away from the swamp and the well-worn path. He gathers some stones and lays them out in a circle for a fire pit. He cuts palm fronds off of the low growing palmettos that grow along the top of the embankment. He lays these out like a huge blanket and sets his backpack on them. He gathers small sticks and medium sticks. He even gathers some good size logs. He notices there are plenty of fallen trees and floating logs for which he can use to float his backpack across when the time comes. It was too early to start the fire so he sits down on the blanket of palm fronds. It’s time to get out of the wet clothes. He pulls the extra pair of pants, shirt, and the remaining sock out of the backpack. After changing his shirt he pulls off his pants and in so doing Ryan spots the leaches.

“
Gross!” he says with disgust, “you blood sucking devils.”

He does not freak-out this time. He calmly reaches for the machete and with its tip, slides it along the length of their blood gorged bodies until he finds their mouths. They c
ame off with an easy flick of the blade. They were full, and within minutes would have dropped off to digest. But that does not stop Ryan from gathering them into a small ball just off his palm frond blanket where with the unison chopping of his machete and a yell that went, “Die, Die, Die,” he turned them into a muddy bloody pile of goo. Using his machete he flung their remains down the embankment and sitting down he tends to his leg wounds. 

Digging through the backpack he finds the first-aid kit and after applying antibiotic suave,
he wraps the wounds with gauze. It would be several hours before the blood would clot. He spreads the contents of the backpack out on the blanket and takes an inventory, and in so doing finds the digital camera.

“Cool,
I’ve got
to snap some pictures.” he says.

He powers it up
, the batteries are good, but then it flashes a message, “memory-card full.”

“That’s a bummer,” he said
, tossing the camera onto the blanket.

He eats
some beef-jerky and a granola bar and then drinks some water from the opened bottle. He reclines on the blanket and relaxes for the first time since he and his dad were flying high above this scenic wilderness. Ryan takes in the view from his camp area.

Ryan’s camp is on the inside of a horseshoe curve o
f the river. It is tucked-in behind the towering cypress. To look directly across the two hundred foot wide river channel, is to look south towards his destination. The river water is dark. Oklawaha means “dark water.” The water hyacinths drift slowly by. The fish swirl the water as they pluck freshwater shrimp from beneath them. On the far side the towering cypress trees again grow well into the river. Ryan wonders if there is an embankment on the other side.

“Wow
! I’m going to have to swim that tomorrow,” he says, “maybe I’ll be lucky and catch a boat.”

To the east and downstream on Ryan’s left
, there are wood-ducks paddling lazily along the shore. Clouds of mayflies are suspended above the river making a tasty meal for the swallows as they dart in and out, having their fill. Not too far downstream the river makes a bend to the right.

To the west and upstream on
Ryan’s right an otter plays with her pups on a small sandy beach on the far side of the river. The sun is touching the tops of the cypress trees turning them red as though they were about to catch fire. The river sparkles in the setting sun. Not very far away the river takes a bend to the left.

High above
an osprey drifts in the evening currents trying to spot the last meal of the day. The starlings in small formations make their way towards the setting sun as they do every evening. It’s time to roost. Nature is wrapping up for the day and preparing for the night.

The lighting of the fire went very well
as he lit the tinder and then the small sticks. In a short time Ryan had a roaring fire with plenty of logs to add throughout the night. The golden embers drift into the evening sky. Ryan watched them disappear above his head, blending into the amber sky.  He now has a sense of belonging, and not so much like a foreigner in a far-off land. Then he hears something in the distance. It started low but now it’s growing louder.

“What is that?” Ryan says spinning around in a circle trying to determine its direction. “That doesn’t sound like an animal,”
he said as he pauses motionless, straining to hear it. “That’s a motorboat!”

The fisherman in his
little john boat has but one thing on his mind. Get to the boat ramp before dark. With his eyes fixed keenly ahead on the winding river channel he squints into the setting sun. With his hand holding the throttle wide open he tries to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of the little two stroke engine. It answers with a deafening howl. The cypress trees fly-by like a picket fence. It would take a gunshot at just the precise moment to get his attention but that doesn’t stop Ryan from trying.

Ryan starts down the embankment right side up but in his hurry he is tripped up and tumbles down head
-over-heels. He stops at the water’s edge just in time to look up and see the speeding fisherman going by, and through the twenty-feet of cypress trees he yells as loud as he can. 

“
Hey, stop!” and just for moment the fisherman turns his head but then he very quickly turns it back thinking he had mistakenly heard something. Ryan stood at the toe of the slope watching through the trees as the boat faded away. He understood all too well now what his father meant when he said it would be nearly impossible to get someone’s attention.

Ryan watched
the waves from the passing boat ripple towards the shore and towards a log with a yellow-bellied turtle perched atop. The ripples frightened the turtle and with a leap he splashed into the river.

This set off a thundering explosion of churning mud and water as an alligator of at least
eight feet gobbled him up for dinner.

Ryan walked back up the
slope clutching his machete. He stands by the fire watching as the alligator—like a submarine with a snaking tail—heads across the river.

“I’ve got to swim that tomorrow?” Ryan asks himself. He sits down on his blanket and stokes
-up the fire for added safety. Soon, the last rays of daylight will fade away. The moon is rising giving him the comfort of knowing that there will be some light tonight.

As the ashes drift away so does his thoughts to home. He thinks about Brent and the movie they were
supposed to watch. He thinks about the poker game and his eighteenth birthday tomorrow. He wonders how his dad is doing but he has the upmost faith that he will survive until tomorrow night. He knows that due to his dad’s previous escapades; his friends and family will not be worried until tomorrow evening. His thoughts are interrupted by the rustling of wings. Something ghosts by overhead and settles into a cypress tree within the glow of the fire.

Ryan is straining to see what it
is when his eyes meet the huge eyes of a Great Horned Owl. “Well hello Mr. Owl,” Ryan says, “I’m glad to see you and I hope you stay for the night.” Ryan takes comfort in the thought of something keeping him company.

He did not take comfort in the thought of the alligator coming up the
slope or the panther coming out of the swamp. He already had a plan of defense for the panther. If it were to pounce he would lie on his back and impale it on his machete. He had no such plan for the alligator. He was stirring the fire and mulling over such a plan when he heard it. It was a hideous cry from deep in the swamp.

Back at the hog wire pen w
here the fawn was ensnared the panther lets out a cry of anger. He has lost the trail of the fawn but he has since doubled back to the wire pen and sniffs the ground for a scent.

He finds one.

It’s Ryan’s scent.

He lumbers down the path that Ryan created but he is in no hurry. He will continue to track Ryan until something else comes along
— that is to say
if
something else comes along.

Once the
panther finds Ryan’s
blood
he will not be deterred. He will seek out Ryan at all cost, counting him as nothing more than a wounded animal.

Sometime between
the hours of dusk and dawn he will lie in wait, and when he is ready, he will
pounce!

Beep, beep, beep
, the stove alarm tells Judy that the cobbler is done. She opens the stove door and sets the pan on a rack. She wipes the sweat off of her brow with a dish towel before throwing it into the clothes bin and hangs a fresh towel on the stove handle. She starts a pot of coffee as the doorbell rings.

Judy heads towards the door, before answer
ing it she stops by the mirror in the hallway to fix her hair and to strategically adjust her dress. Judy is a practical woman, but will use all of her attributes to achieve her goal and that is to convince Sergeant Mallory to get an early start with the search tomorrow. It should not be too hard. She can at times hold Bob Mallory in the palm of her hand.

Sergeant Mallory asked Judy to the prom t
hirty two years ago, she turned him down. She went with Rob instead and it ended up in marriage. They have been happily married—with three children—ever since. Bob Mallory never has married and waits patiently,
forever
if necessary for Judy’s hand.

Bob
adores Judy but Rob is one of his best friends. That’s just the way love deals the cards sometimes. The three of them know and except the situation. The three of them also know that if anything should happen to Rob, Judy
will
marry Bob. It’s just an accepted fact and in some weird way it comforts the three of them. When Bob has to go searching for Rob his emotions run high, for he is torn between the need to find his friend alive and the want of being with the love of his life. It’s not easy being Sergeant Bob Mallory.

“Hi
Judy,” Bob said as she opens the door and motions for him to come in.

“The cobbler is done, let me finish the coffee,” she says heading back to the kitchen.
Bob closes the door and turns to hang his coat on the rack.

“I checked in with the airfield, Rob’s truck is still there,” his voice rises in the direction of the kitchen.
“The man on the phone said that the truck was locked but he hears what sounds like cellphones in the glove box, making noises.” He continues to stand by the front door.

“Come
into the kitchen Bob,” Judy says finishing up the coffee.

Bob walks slowly through the hall and into the kitchen. Judy
is running hot water and leans into the steam. With her back to the hall she hears his footsteps as he enters the kitchen. She turns her head to one side, pausing for a moment, and then apprehensively turns full around. Bob gets a little weak in the knees and reaches for the back of a chair. The loveliness of her
steamy
silhouette is just too much for him, he has to sit down. She turns back to face the sink.

She
hates
toying with Bob’s emotions knowing how much he adores her. She shouldn’t have to do anything as
daring
for a while. That image will be burned into his mind for at least five years
.
She smiles and shakes her head ever so slightly. “
Men,”
she says to herself before turning around to face Bob.

“So
the truck is at the airfield and the cellphones are in the glove box, well that explains why he hasn’t called,” Judy said as she made her way from the sink to the table. She takes a seat across from Bob who is regaining his composer. She places her hand on his hand and gives it a squeeze and a little shake as if to say,
“It’s OK Bob, I know what you’re thinking, now get over it.”
She takes her hand back.

“That—that’s right Judy,” he takes a deep breath and
exhales. Then he continues, “If we look at what we do know, it should help us figure out a game plan for tomorrow. We know he is not in the air, but there are plenty of grass airstrips and fields north of the Oklawaha River where they may have put down for the night.”

With Bob
s attention fully on Rob now, Judy gets up from the table, prepares two cobbler plates and heads over to the coffee pot as it sounds the alarm that it has finished. She pours two cups and puts one sugar and heavy cream in both cups. She
knows
how Bob likes his coffee. She sets both the coffee and the cobbler on the table and sits down across from Bob.

“Go on,” she says, as they both begin to sip their coffee and start
in on the cobbler.

“The way I figure it, we need to pin down th
e location of the job site that Rob is scouting.” He pauses for a bite of cobbler.

“
Did you get to look around in his office for anything helpful?” Bob asked.

“No I haven’t, with Brent calling
and the restaurant calling to see if we were coming I have been busy.” Judy said, “As soon as we finish our cobbler let’s take our coffee to Rob’s office. I’m sure we can find
something
telling us where he was heading.”

They both
quickly finish the cobbler and put their plates in the sink. Taking their coffee cups they head down the hall towards Rob’s office. Judy is in the lead with Bob in-tow. It’s a peculiar site as Judy is a head taller than Bob. They stop at a set of well-crafted double-doors. Judy pulls a key out of her dress pocket as Bob admires the woodwork.

“I have
n’t seen the inside of Rob’s office,” Bob says, “I bet it’s nice.”

“His clients seem to like it. This is his private entrance
. He usually brings clients in from the outside.” Judy says swinging open a door and turning on a light. The light reveals a large octagon room, four walls and four doors, with an atrium in the middle. Bob is very impressed.

“Wow, what is this place?”

“It’s a display room. A room for Rob to display old surveying instruments from the past, and a place to display some of nature’s creatures that Rob has to deal with.”

In the center of the room is a free standing octagon atrium. It is the main
attraction. It is ten feet across with spot lights and landscape timbers around the base. The base is knee high, and then starts the mounded “island-of-life” as Rob likes to call it. Up above is a skylight for the horticulture planted throughout the island. “Let me see, the switch to turn on the spot lights is over here somewhere, Oh yes here it is.” Judy said as she flipped the switch lighting up the atrium and all of its life.

“W
ow!” Bob said loudly, jerking his body back and slightly spilling his coffee, “that’s a rattlesnake!” It was knee high directly in front of him in the atrium.

“It’s
stuffed
Bob.” Judy said with a laugh. Still chuckling she set her coffee cup down on one of the glass display cases and taking Bob’s cup from him, set it down also. He didn’t argue.

“
That looks like a water moccasin over there.” Bob said pointing into the atrium.

“It is,” Judy went on, “and that’s a Bobcat
. Rob had to kill it. It attacked him.” She said. “Way up there in those vines is a large hornet nest,” Judy pointed to a basketball-size lump of gray paper.

“My God, how did he ever get
to that nest without getting stung?”

“He said he smoked them out
on a cold day.”

Bob shuddered at the thought and turned away from the atrium to inspect one of the glass cases that lined the walls
.

There were four glass cases in all
, and four doors in all (counting the door that they entered from.) The room was laid out like a stop sign. The top, bottom, left, and right sides are doors, and the other four angular sides are walls with glass display cases of various artifacts pertaining to land surveying.

“What is Rob doing with all these old surveying instruments?” Bob said referring to a glass case full of brass compasses, transits, and measuring chains.

“He is a collector as well.” Judy said as she turned a light on inside the case, lighting up all the shiny brass within. She saw a sparkle in Bob’s eyes as he moved to the next case. Judy followed and lit up that one as well.

“Old bottles, that’s very nice.” Bob said as he admired the many colors
of the old glass. There were shades of purple, brown and green. Some were black and many were clear. Judy moved ahead while he was looking intently at the bottles. Then she lit up the third case.

“What are th
ose?” Bob said, referring to the brass disks, pipes and broken concrete monuments. There also was a wooden post on top of the glass case in a box being readied to be shipped.

“Those are destroyed and displaced
boundary stones or survey markers.” Judy said.

“And the wooden post?”

“That’s a very old survey marker. Rob is shipping it off to the Smithsonian.” Judy said, “Do you want to head over to his office now?”

“What’s in the last case?”

“Oh, let me light it up for you,” Judy turned the light on inside the case, “It has a bunch of old maps and deeds, and old field notes.” She said.

After he admired the maps for
a while he gathered the coffee cups and taking a look around he said, “This is quite some place Rob has here Judy. It really gives you a feel for what Rob does for a living.”

“Yes it does, and when a client starts to haggle with Rob about a price for a survey. Rob likes to bring them out here to show them what he has to deal with in performing their survey. They always come away with a new level of respect.” Judy said proudly.
They finished their coffee and left their cups on the last display case.

“Well let’s head
over to his office then, shall we.” Bob said. He too had a new level of respect for how Rob makes a living.

Judy led them through a set of double doors and into
Rob’s office. She turned on a light. The room was chock-full of maps and plans scattered about.

“I don’t know where to start looking.” She said.

“Well, didn’t you say that the last job he did was on the Oklawaha River?” Bob asked as he dug around inside a pile of aerial photographs.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Well than look for a photo or plan with a river on it, we can start from there. Rob told me that he was going to be north of the last job he finished.” Bob said.

“Wait a
minute. Did he not meet with his new client recently?” He asked.

“Yes he did
, yesterday as a matter of fact.”

“Does he have a conference room?”

“Why yes, right across the hall.”

“Take me over there.” Bob said, and without a word she turned out the light and
with Bob in-tow they headed across the hall to the conference room.

Judy switched the light on
. Bob was greeted by the sight of a conference table with a large aerial photo on it.

“We may have something here,” Bob said as he pulled the aerial over to him for a closer look. At the bottom of the photo was the Oklawaha River
, but farther to the north near the top of the photo, was a large boxed out area outlined in red pencil. In the margin was written the words “
area to be scouted
.”

“Judy, I believe we found where they were heading
,” he said. Without looking at her he studied the photo intently. Judy moved up behind Bob and peered over his shoulder.

“This boxed out area is about
fifteen miles north of the river. It is five miles long by ten miles wide so we are looking at a 50 square mile area. Notice that there are several grass airstrips near the property.” Bob said as he let out a sigh of relief, “I bet they’re camping at one of these airfields right now as we speak.” His voice ended with certainty.

“Well that’s it then,” Judy said, “the
y’re most likely just fine,” and after slapping her palms onto the desktop—she gave Bob a big hug. It made him feel uncomfortable, but it
was
instinctive. Awkwardly parting from their embrace—Judy turns out the light—Bob takes the aerial as they head out of the conference room.

Crossing through the atrium, Judy gather
s up the coffee cups and arriving back at the kitchen—with Bob standing by the table—she rinses them.

“The man at the airfield said that Rob did not file a flight
plan, but this aerial is just as good, I think anyway.” Bob was saying as Judy continued at the sink, “I will head up to the grass airstrips in the morning where I expect to find them camping. If they are not there then I will call the bird in.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Judy said as she put the clean coffee cups into the strainer, “and
if I should hear from them I will call you right away Bob.” She said as she came up to his side at the kitchen table and said, “I suppose we should both get some rest now. It’s going to be a long day.”

“Err-ah, yes of course,” Bob stumbled for words as he
got the hint it was time to leave. They walked to the door without saying a word. Bob took his coat from the rack as Judy opened the door wide. He slung his coat over his arm and with the aerial photo in hand, stepped out of the door. After negotiating the slight downward step he turned to face Judy.