Journal (8 page)

I
figured he had led me to the door he intended, the real truth he wanted me to
see, which could only be one thing — his next question had to concern the
threat that Mr. Ponytail and all his buddies posed to us and the town of Woburn.  It would likely go something like this:  Since it’s justifiable to take the life
of someone trying to unjustly kill another, loved one or not; since it’s
justifiable to kill someone you know for sure is intent on doing you harm; and
since it is clear that Mr. Ponytail and his friends are intent on killing not
only us, but all the people in Woburn, isn’t it justifiable to take their lives
without mercy?  Even if from ambush, wouldn’t it be a justifiable act to kill
every one of them we encountered along the way until we no longer believed they
posed a threat?    

I
asked myself, what if I rejected the position of killing them?  Let’s say that
when I came across them, I simply took their weapons and sent them on their
way.  Well, they are hunting me – us - for a reason aren’t they?  They don’t
have to, do they?  They could simply sneak off in the night and be done with
their murderous intent, but they haven’t, right?  It is a choice they made.  We
didn’t put it upon them.  So there is no good reason to believe that if I let
them go, they wouldn’t simply get other weapons and come back. 

So
what’s that leave me with?  Let them go and we will just have to fight them
again later.  Kill them now and their threat is over.  But under those rules of
engagement, it would mean that when I came up behind the pilot, I should have just
shot him without warning.  Does this make sense?  Yes, of course it does.  Can
I do it?  I don’t think so.

As
I waited for Gabriel to ask the question, or another I didn’t see, I continued
to think about it and to examine it from every possible angle.  Still, I came
to no other conclusion.  I didn’t feel right about it.  I couldn’t picture
myself doing it.  But there didn’t seem any other alternative answer if Anna, Gabriel
and I were to survive.

Gabriel
never asked the question, though.  Without any further discussion, he just lay
down and closed his eyes. 

It
was below freezing then and getting colder.  Those pine boughs we put down and the
pitiful layers under which I slept did little to warm me.  I balled my fingers
and curled my body to preserve as much warmth as possible, but it seemed to do
little good.  This was going to be the worst night yet, and I was concerned
about what would happen if it continued to get much colder.  I even thought
about getting up and moving about just to generate some body heat. 

I
was still thinking about it when I heard, rather than saw, Anna come in under
the shelter.  It was just that dark.  When she got herself settled onto our makeshift
mattress, I felt her shaking violently.  I was doing my share of that, too.  She
toughed it out for about ten minutes before I felt her body move closer to me. 
She told me to turn on my side, away from her, and said, “Don’t get any ideas.” 
I didn’t, believe me I didn’t, and she moved her front to my back and I believe
Gabriel’s to hers.  I have to admit it helped.  After that, I even got some
sleep.

I
want to add a comment here, well, to make surewot maybe more of an observation really.  It has
been a long time, a long, long time since I’ve had contact like that with
another human being.   I had forgotten how the mere act of touching someone can
somehow change the dynamic of a relationship.  I don’t mean in a sexual way
either.  I think it is true that touching makes an emotional connection as well
as a physical one.  Something very human and personal passes between two people,
at that moment, with just the sensation of touch and even more so with the
exchange of body heat, too.  The transaction seems to break down barriers that we,
as humans, tend to erect to insulate ourselves from one another.  I guess my
point is, it’s sort of hard to have an attitude when you’re hugging someone.

____________

When
it was my turn to stand watch, I gotta tell you, it took every ounce of
willpower I had to leave the relative warmth of that bed.  I thought of every
phony-baloney excuse possible to avoid it, too.  Nobody will be out there in
this cold; I’ll hear them long before they see us; we hid our tracks so well
nobody will find them anyway; it would be better to stay here, hidden among the
rocks, instead of being out there where they might see me first; and so forth. 
When I finally did step outside with my rifle, I found that the new morning didn’t
bring with it new hope.  Instead, it brought with it more trouble.  The ground
was covered with snow and more was falling.  The date was April sixth. 

After
I got my blood circulating, and when it got light enough to see, I scrounged a
few pieces of semi-dry wood.  To get them burning, it took most of the pages
from the damaged journal.  If ever there was a time to use some of that instant
coffee I found in the shack, that was it, and that’s what I did.  I also thawed
out the remaining pork and beans – they froze overnight.  There was just enough
there for two or three spoonfuls each.  I figured after such a tough night, we
should at least start out with a little something in our stomachs, however
meager. 

Another
comment.  I seem to be just full of them today.  Pork and beans and instant
coffee were probably two of my least favorite things in my former life.  That
morning, they tasted like the best steak and wine I ever had.  I guess that’s
the way it is when you’re starving.

Anna
was up and moving by the time I killed the fire, but Gabriel was still down,
which worried me badly.  We had been burning a lot of energy since fleeing the
farm and not taking-in anywhere near enough calories to replenish it.  It
seemed Gabriel had been particularly affected by this.  As I’ve said, he was thin
when we first started out, but he appeared especially shrunken-in on himself that
morning.  I carried him a cup of weak coffee and the last of the beans and told
him to stay where he was while I rolled things up and packed other things away. 
At one point, I looked to check on him, and he seemed more animated but not
greatly so.  Eventually, he did gather himself and load up his belongings. 
Tough kid; mentally tough anyway.    

As
we were putting the last of our gear away, Anna told me that she thought we had
better change directions and start back.  She explained she was anxious to warn
the people of Woburn of the planned attack and was afraid if we didn’t start
that way right then, we’d not make it in time.

I
couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.  First, she actually initiated a
discussion with me, and second, she said we,
we
as in the three of us
together.  The sudden change made me feel good and nervous all at the same time. 
I remember asking myself if I would have felt more at ease if she told me I
could go screw myself if I didn’t want to change directions and that she would
go without me if necessary.  

I
have to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to going much farther north anyway.  I
was damn cold and it would be even colder in that direction because there would
be at least another fifteen hundred feet of elevation climb, maybe more.  So it
didn’t take a lot of convincing to get me to agree.  In the back of my mind,
though, was the knowledge that we really weren’t all that far away from where
we last encountered Mr. Ponytail’s crew, maybe eight or nine miles at most.  If
they were still following us north, and we turned east now, they could
conceivably intercept us.  But the choice was between maybe freezing to death
north or maybe getting shot to death east.

We
walked east in a steady snowfall.  But snow was better than rain, and it would
eliminate our tracks in short order — at least we could say that.  It made for
hard walking, however — we could say that, too.  It was hard not so much
because of the depth of the snow, it wasn’t yet that bad.  It had more to do
with the terrain, which was either up or down.   It also was because the ground
was so uneven you never knew exactly what you were stepping on.  In fact, I
fell once when my toe caught a root hidden in the snow.   I also saw Gabriel go
down one time.  He made a face like he hurt himself, but he didn’t cry out.  He
just got back up and kept going.

More
and more, the trees gave way to a landscape of barren white slopes, dabbed here
and there grey-green with sage, which, at times, was waist high and impenetrable,
requiring frequent changes in direction.  It also slowed our progress down
considerably. 

About
three hours into the morning, we stopped to rest and study our surroundings to
see if we were being followed.  Gabriel was looking pretty bad and Anna only a
little bit better, sitting there hunched over and hugging herself.  I took the
time at that point to cut strips of fabric from the material I had removed from
the plane.  I wrapped these around their lower legs as makeshift gaiters, tying
them in place with nylon cord.  Their pants were already wet, but I figured
this might help insulate them from the cold.  I wished I had thought of it
earlier.  I also made sure that Gabriel drank some water.  You can get
dehydrated in the cold just the same as you can in heat.
 
During this whole process, not
much was said between us; each holding our miseries tight.    

Re-reading
what I just put down, I can imagine that it might make me sound as if I am this
tough, resilient character taking care of the women folk and children, but
that’s not the case; not by a long shot.  First, as I’ve stated so many times
before, I was completely and totally miserable, scared, cold, wet, and tired
just like they were.  The reason I might have been in slightly better shape than
they were is because I had warmer clothing on and more of it.  They left the
farm essentially with what they had on their backs and what they could scrounge
up in just a very few minutes.  Also, there was a practical reason for me being
particularly attentive to their phys the Author

Getting
back to it, with little enthusiasm, we continued east.  If there was a bright
spot, it was that the snow stopped falling, and it seemed that we were going
more downhill than up.  Once I saw deer tracks and another time what had to be
the paw prints of a gray wolf or large dog.  There would be no hunting, however. 
To risk a shot
from
us now, would risk a shot
at
us later. 

Other
than that already mentioned, and an uneventful crossing of an old logging road,
there’s not much to tell about the next several hours.  After all, how do I
remark on a missed footstep, an uprooted tree, or a climb just short of impossible
when the hundred before and after were no different?  It was basically just one
foot in front of the other for about six more hours.

We
quit when our legs quit, not another step less.  This time I left Anna and
Gabriel to put up our shelter while I scouted around for fire wood and maybe
something to eat.  I found enough pieces of dry wood for a cook fire, refilled
our water bottles from a ribbon of water flowing from a hillside spring, and
picked two pockets full of new growth Fiddleheads, a type of edible fern common
to the area.  There wasn’t enough for a full meal, but it would maybe provide a
few more calories to keep us going.

Because
I have mentioned more than once finding this plant or that which we then ate or
brewed to tea, I should explain here that I’m not an expert at this or
anything.  It’s just that about a year ago, I came across a paperback on edible
plants under the seat of an abandoned Ford pickup truck.  What am I saying,
they’re all abandoned now.  Anyway, I hung onto it for a while and tested it
out whenever I came across one of the plants pictured on its pages.  In that
way, I got to know a few plants that are safe to eat.  I only wish I’d kept the
book, because we’ve probably walked by a dozen other edible plants without
knowing it.  I ended up using it as fire starter on a day when heat was a more
immediate need than food.

By
the time I got back, Anna and Gabriel had set up a lean-to shelter under a
large pine and were just about finished laying a bed of pine needles to sleep
on.  The temperature was maybe in the low 40s, and we were at an elevation of about
2,000 feet, so the only snow left on the ground was in the shade.  Also, we
were in a region that was a mixture of meadowland and forest, so the walking
was becoming easier and easier. 

A
few other things should be mentioned, too.  The lack of food and almost
constant dawn to dusk walking was really taking its toll.  First, we all stunk
like a locker full of sweaty gym shorts.  I know I sure did, but there wasn’t
much I could do about it.  We were also dropping weight like mad.  I noticed it
most in my waist.  I was constantly hiking up my pants during the day and, as
I’ve mentioned, Gabriel seemed to be the one suffering most from it.  It looked
like his eyes had literally been sucked back inside his skull, and you could
see that just about everything he did was a struggle.  The thing that bothered
me the most, other than the weaWhile so engagedwotkness I was experiencing, were the headaches and
mild dizziness.  I suspected that we were all feeling the same thing, but there
was no talk about it.

We
cooked up the last of the venison, not much of that, used more of the instant
coffee, and ate the Fiddlehead.  I started feeling better almost immediately
after, but I knew it wouldn’t last.  Tomorrow would be worse than today.  We
were now completely out of food.  There also wouldn’t be any hunting on our
part because of our fear that our pursuers were close.  I remember hoping we’d
find something to eat, the same way you would hope a broken leg wasn’t broken
or that you’d wake up in a warm bed, knowing all the time it really wasn’t
going to happen.