Journal (23 page)

We
trudged on the entire morning, and the terrain stayed pretty much the same.  It
was still farm country, fields and orchards, so it was relatively flat. 
Several times, we saw buildings off in the distance, probably houses and barns
and such.  Under other circumstances, I might have been inclined to check them
out, but it would take too much time away from our main objective, getting to
Woburn, so bypass them we did.

Once
or twice, as we walked along, Petra talked about what her room would look like
in “the safe place,” and the games she’d play with her new friends, and how
maybe they’d even have a school for her to attend, but for the most part she
was quiet, which was a good thing.  With no ambient noise from cars, trucks,
music, or at the present, wind, a voice can be heard from quite a distance, and
no telling how close our enemies were.  Still, when she did talk about these
things, I didn’t shush her.  It made me feel good to hear someone who was
looking forward with such hope and promise.  I had enough worry and sadness for
the both of us.

About
mid-day, our surroundings began to change.  We encountered a set of rolling
hills that steepened to our east.  The slopes near the lower elevations were
well timbered, and the bottoms drained toward the river.  Several times we
walked over sections of the road that bridged drainage pipes, conducting water
west.  All this of course slowed our progress.

As
always, we still passed dark brownwot cars and trucks on flattened tires, streaked brown,
falling to rust.  At one point we encountered an open trench running along the
side of the road.  On one end was a piece of heavy equipment, painted yellow, a
trencher I think.  At the bottom of this hole was a length of corrugated pipe
about three feet in diameter, half submerged in muddy water.  Nearby, other
twenty-foot sections of the same pipe were stacked in threes, and it looked
like animals had been using them for shelter.  There were paw prints on the
ground near the openings.  There was also what looked like a human jawbone with
teeth intact.

On
the other side of the river, we could see a set of buildings I assumed to have
once been a charging station, small grocery, and a fast food joint for
travelers along Highway 97.  The roof of one of the structures was burned
through and toppled inward.  Crows roosted on the two that were left.

Eventually
we took a break in a small grove of trees not but fifty yards from our course
of travel.  There, we each ate another piece of dried meat and some of the
carrots I’d liberated at the first of the morning.  After a time, I walked off a
short distance and filled our water bottles from a nearby stream.  When I came
back, Petra was laying on her back sound asleep, so I decided to give her a few
minutes and sat down nearby.

Our
place wasn’t particularly advantageous for concealment but well enough so to avoid
detection on just a casual glance.  It did, however, provide a good vantage
point for me to view the road we traveled, so that’s where I turned my
attention while Petra slept.

After
only three or four minute’s time, I was startled to see a man and woman come
into view from the north, going our same direction of travel.  The man was
tall, thin, and hunched over, not like he was being sneaky or anything, but
more like he was built that way.  He was wearing a denim vest over a jacket, a
baseball cap, and dirty, white high-top tennis shoes.  The woman was large,
built like a pear, and wearing a thigh length light brown coat and brown
pants.  The man was armed with a shotgun.  The woman, as far as I could see, was
unarmed.

The
woman now, well for a few seconds there she teased at my memory.  Where have I
seen her before, I wondered?  Finally I had her pegged.  It was the woman I saw
at the farm where I first encountered Gabriel and Anna; or so she appeared.  At
the time this was happening, I couldn’t manage her name.  I didn’t dwell on it,
though, because what was the point.  Later I recalled it was Nora.  I also
recalled what Gabriel had told me about her — she was just as bad as the men.

The
pair jogged a few yards, stopped and looked behind them; then jogged some
more.  At one point, the man with the shotgun lay down alongside a small red car
with the engine hood standing open and aimed his weapon back the way they had
come.  He must have found that position uncomfortable because he then rose to
one knee, still pointing the gun as if he were expecting someone to appear,
sighting right down the barrel.  This position must have been unsatisfactory,
too, because after only a few seconds, no longer than a minute, he abandoned
the car altogether and returned to running as they had before.  A mere twenty
steps after that, they stopped yet again, and while the man looked behind him, I
saw the woman’s gaze settle on the trees that sheltered us.  A couple of
seconds later I saw he;
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4tifr pull the shoulder of her companion’s jacket in our
direction and start toward us but with their attention mostly on the road
behind them.

At
this, I dropped to the ground and crawled to Petra, where I shook her awake
with one hand, while holding the other over her mouth.  I whispered for her to
keep very quiet and quickly gathered up our things and began moving farther up
the hill and deeper into the trees.  As we moved, I could hear the pair getting
closer.

I
found a place for us down low, behind a tree that had fallen and rested on
another.  We were fairly well concealed here and, once again, I cautioned Petra
against making any noise.  “Some bad people are near,” I told her.

I
remember being just absolutely sure they were going to find us.  I figured they
would, without a doubt, see where we had crushed down the grass and see our
tracks where we snuck off.  How could they not help doing so?  In my mind, I started
preparing for a confrontation.

When
they finally stopped, we were not but thirty feet beyond them.  The man took a
spot behind a tree, standing up, and pointed the shotgun back down at the road.
 I was really thinking about that shotgun at that moment; I surely was.  Should
we be discovered, as I envisioned, the best I could do would be to point an
empty pistol at them and hope for a stand-off.  That they would be fooled or
intimidated seemed pretty unlikely.  His weapon would be a terrible thing to
face.  And talk about facing things, what of the people they were waiting in
ambush for?  If we did in some way manage to avoid Nora and her friend, would
the others be worse?  Those were my thoughts anyway.

Nora
grabbed the man’s sleeve and yanked on it a couple of times, but the man shook
her off without even looking in her direction.  She grabbed his sleeve again
and this time said, “You fool, we’re too far away for that,” which was true,
both parts of it — fool and being too far away.  At fifty or sixty or more
yards, the effectiveness of the shotgun was questionable.  She said that they
should just let them pass and follow after for a chance to catch them by
surprise.  She then said something that nearly put a stop to my heart.  “I
can’t wait to see that bitch’s face just before we pull the trigger.  She won’t
be so high and mighty then.”

The
man snorted out a laugh that sounded like a hog rooting tubers, and it was so
loud that she called him a “dummy” this time, and told him to “shut-up.”

Now
of course, you can guess what I was thinking, and it didn’t have anything to do
with swine or ignorant, obnoxious women either.  I was thinking of Anna.  But
at first, I fought the possibility as hard as I fought the acceptance of her
and Gabriel’s deaths.  Once again, it was a struggle between my rational/logical
self and my emotional self.  In my head I was saying, “I saw the boat with my
own eyes.  They couldn’t possibly have survived that kind of damage.”  But all
the while that was going on, the drumbeat of hope got louder, and louder, and
louder until I couldn’t even hear myself think.  Eventually the rhythm of it
got to me, and I found myself keeping its time, singing its lyrics, and it soon
became one of those songs you just can’t get out of your head no matter how
hard you try.se people want you so bad?”

I
made the leap and told myself they had to be talking about Anna, right?  This
Nora woman was at the farm where she and Gabriel were being held, right? 
Gabriel said she was mean and vindictive, right?   So it made sense, right?  Of
course, right.  They had to be talking about Anna.  I tried to hear more.

They
had huddled-up by that point, and it was much harder for me to eavesdrop.  From
the few words I could fathom, it sounded like they were excited about the
reward they’d receive for the killing they now planned.  That also made me
think it was Gabriel and Anna they were talking about.  I knew that Ponytail
wanted to catch or kill both Anna and Gabriel, so it made sense that he offered
some kind of inducement to get his minions to do it.  From what I knew of him,
that’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.

Nora
cut off their conversation at this point and announced, almost with dramatic flair,
“I gotta pee” and just like that, she walked a few yards away, pulled her pants
down and did her business.  While so engaged the man turned toward her and
said, “Hey!  Hurry up will ya?  Here they come.”

In
response, she called him another name (I won’t say what it was here) and again
told him to shut up and to keep his eyes on them, not on her.

What
I heard from all that was he used the word “they” when he spoke, and she said “them.” 
Well, I jumped right on that one.  As far as I was concerned, it was just that
much more proof that they were stalking at least two people and those two
people were Anna and Gabriel.  I started to worry about how I was going to warn
them without getting myself killed.

As
she pulled up her pants, the man said, “Yeah, well, don’t you go blaming me
when you miss ‘em.”  So she hurried back over.

As
best as I can recall, this is part of the conversation that took place between the
two of them.  I’m writing it out because it will explain how everything
suddenly flip-flopped.  I wasn’t so sure anymore it was Anna and Gabriel they
were hunting.

Nora:
“Ah… I don’t know.  You think that’s them, huh?  Which one you think is her?”

The
man:  “You see, the one on the right there… Nah, that’s them.  It’s gotta be
them.”

Nora: 
“I think you’re seeing things — as usual.”

The
man:  “What’s the difference?  One way or another, plan’s still the same. 
We’ll kill ‘em and then we’ll know for sure.  They’re far enough away now,
let’s start working ourselves back down there.”

There
was a little more conversation before they took off, but I couldn’t hear it all
and of what I did, there’s nothing more worth stating.  So you can see, now I
wasn’t so sure anymore.  I wanted to believe they were still alive, I really
did.  But I told myself that if it were Anna and Gabriel, Nora would have
recognized them. After all, they’d spent enough time se people want you so bad?”

As
they started back down the hill toward the road, I was wondering two more things. 
First, how did they miss all the signs we left that we’d been there?  And
second, how in the heck was I going to warn the people these two were stalking,
even if they weren’t Anna and Gabriel?

Regarding
the latter, after a few seconds of deliberation it seemed there was only one
thing to do.  I figured we’d have to try to parallel Nora and her companion
through the hills and, at some point, get ahead of them enough that we could
let Anna and Gabriel, or whoever, know the danger they were in.

I
knew doing this wouldn’t be either easy or certain of success.  First, there
was Petra.  Her little legs on these hills would slow us down.  Second, there
was the fact that there was only periodic cover in the form of trees.  Much of
the terrain that I could see was covered with grass and brush that wouldn’t
conceal us very well, so we’d have to use the contour of the land itself to
hide in.  In other words, only move forward when a ridgeline was between them
and us.

If
we managed to catch up with the people being stalked and those people weren’t
Anna and Gabriel, well, I couldn’t come up with a plan.  If that were the
situation, we really wouldn’t know what sort of people they were.  They might
be killers themselves.  In fact, they might be worse than Nora and her buddy
there.  So if we approached them with a warning, that just might be it for us.

There
was an “on the other hand” to this.  They could also be good, decent people and
should be warned.  Moreover, if they were righteous folks, and since they were
going our way, they might be just the edge we needed to get to Woburn safely; safety
in numbers and all that.  So, it could be in our best interest to warn them, at
least that’s what I was thinking.

As
soon as Nora and her companion started south along the road, we walked to the
edge of the trees.  When they were out of sight, we went down the hill and up
the next.  As we neared the top, we slowed down, and I belly crawled the rest
of the way to the ridge, where I could get a view of the road again, at least up
to where the next hill started.  I watched Nora and the man she was with until
they were out of sight, and started the whole process over again.

That’s
pretty much how it went the whole afternoon, except sometimes I carried Petra
on my back, piggyback style, and sometimes she walked.  On occasion, we also encountered
a structure of some sort, a fence, or a vehicle, but most of the time just
hills, grass, and trees.  Once, though, we passed under some power lines, forty
or fifty feet in the air, supported by two legged structures that looked like
an army of invading aliens, marching single file, perfectly spaced, shoulders
squared, stretched both directions as far as the eye could see.  In the
distance, to our east and near the top of the hills, was a wind farm, spread
out, props dead still and useless.  The best of mankind, made useless by the
worst of mankind.