“‘The dreams are back,’” he read, “‘worse than before. Sometimes I wake up six times a night, but other times I just give up after the first one and go sit in the den. I tried the pills Dr. Kearny gave me, but they made me such a goddamned zombie in the mornings. One time last week, Alice got up with me and brewed up some kind of herbal tea. I guess had a decent night after that, but it might just have been luck.’”
None of the Russells knew quite what to make of this reading, but they sensed it was best to be patient.
“‘The worst dreams are the ones where I’m trapped,’” he continued. “‘Sometimes it’s fire, other times the building is collapsing, like those tunnel walls. But most of the time it’s a line of invisible Gooks…’” Cabot said, then paused to say, “Sorry for the word,” before carrying on, “‘…sniping at me from the trees. Every round is smack on target, and I have to zig-zag like a crazy man. Then, sometimes, it eases off, and there’s just one Charlie, shouting and shooting and threatening me. Those are the dreams I can wake up from normally. Other times, his whole battalion comes at me, and I run out of ammo, and they’re on top of me and I can’t…’” He closed the book. “That’s all he managed to write about it, on that day,” Cabot told them. “There are lots of other dream passages, but that one is the clearest, the most revealing.”
“It’s someone’s journal?” Mary asked, finding it vaguely distasteful to hear a stranger’s private thoughts.
“That’s right. Firstly, Emma, do any of those images feel familiar to you?”
She’d known that the journal entries were being read for her benefit but didn’t yet know what to make of them. “Collapsing tunnels? Viet Cong soldiers? No,” she said mildly, “that’s not what my dream was like.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cabot, “that was the wrong question. What I mean is, did you feel any of those same things?”
She glanced at the page of handwriting, neat and orderly, as though written in a very different age. “I felt fear, sure. Of being overwhelmed or… maybe captured?”
“Go on,” Cabot said.
“And I knew they were after my family, too, so I was worried about them.”
“This man,” Cabot told them, “once woke up because his wife was slapping him hard upside the head. In his dream, he’d been sent to rescue a wounded buddy from a foxhole and take him to the aid post. In reality, he’d picked up his wife, slung her over his shoulder like a casualty, and carried her down to the garden.”
“Must have gotten the shock of his life,” said Cody.
“I’d say he did! But surely he must have told you about that one?” Cabot asked Cody.
Cody blinked half a dozen times. “Huh?”
“This is your dad’s journal, Cody.” He opened the front cover. “‘Property of Grover Theodore Russell.’” Cabot had always found it typical of the man who he boasted not one but two names of presidential consequence. “I was all set to hand this over the other night, but I guess we had too many whiskeys, and I clean forgot.”
“Wow,” Mary breathed. “Cody, there could be all kinds of things in there.”
“Sure are,” interpreted Cabot. “Plans for this place, lots of ideas for improving or expanding. But mostly, I guess it’s his record of the same things that happen to everyone as they get older: worsening mobility, stomach trouble, arguments with younger people who didn’t ‘get it’… This is Grover’s chronicle of what they were trying to do up here, back when it started, and of that few years of his life.”
“I see this ‘Alice’ gets a mention for her tea-making skills,” said Cody. “You were pretty cagey about her when I asked the other night, John.”
“Yeah… I guess I wasn’t very fulsome with my answers. I’m an old man, and I’ve learned not to get myself in the middle of family stuff. Is now the right time to say more?” he asked, but then decided for himself that it couldn’t do any harm. “Well, best as I understand it, Alice was your dad’s second wife.”
“Second?” blurted Mary.
Cody’s mind struggled to put the pieces in place. “Well, I’ll be…”
“Wait, Grandpa Russell married someone up here?” Jacob asked.
“Back in ’99, in the summer,” Cabot said. “There was hardly any ceremony to it. One moment they were living together like a married couple, and the next, they were one. We had a little party that night. They were happy as could be. Adored each other. Sharpshooter never said anything about it?”
Once the initial surprise abated, Cody began to see his father’s reasoning. “Mom died in ’91, and I just always assumed he’d…’
“Become a lonely old widower, living in the woods?” Cabot asked
“Something like that!” admitted Cody. “He didn’t meet new people easily, and he was already older than most of the senior dating pool.”
“He figured you’d be upset, I guess,” said Cabot. “I’d wager he didn’t want his new wife hearing the ‘You’re Not My Mom!’ speech from you.”
“But I’d have been happy for him!” said Cody. Beyond the disbelief, there was a contentment that his father had found love, late in life. But then came a strange sense of loss. “He didn’t share it with me as a friend. Couldn’t bring himself to tell me that he’d found someone special.”
“That old theme again,” said Cabot, setting Sharpshooter’s journal on the table. “Choosing what we should share with those closest to us and probably getting it wrong. Anyways, the reason I’m here is to give a little reassurance to the young lady. I thought her own grandpa might be a good source of advice.” He tapped the book and then slid it across to the family.
Emma wasn’t quite sure what she’d learned. “I’m not the only one who gets nightmares because of the past. I guess that is good to know,” she said. “But his main advice seems to be, ‘Don’t join the army.’”
“Yep. No one says that’s bad advice. Also, maybe try herbal tea. But talk to someone if you need to,” said Cabot. “Your family is here, and they’re a blessing, whether it feels that way every day or not. And I know you went out with Charlie and his little patrol,” he added. “Had yourselves a stressful little encounter with some of our neighbors,” Cabot explained to Emma’s parents.
“The Nazis,” Emma said succinctly. “Gun-toting lunatics.”
“Nazis? Why didn’t you tell us?” Cody demanded, a little too aggressively, and received no reply.
“Well, it was Charlie who clued me in,” said Cabot, “and I’m still figuring out what to do. There’ll be a meeting.” He turned to Emma. “I’m sorry you had to encounter those bozos. They won’t bother us, not here at the camp.”
Emma’s father saw the chance to redouble the reassurance. “You saw them at the National Guard checkpoint. They were hopeless.”
“The two guys who approached us were pretty good at staying stealthy,” she said. “Right, Jake?”
“They got lucky,” her younger brother decided. “On another day, we’d have smelled them coming, and the ambush would have gone the other way.”
“Ambush?” asked Mary in a strangled shriek.
“Nothing bad happened,” Cabot wanted her to know. “Just an exchange of words. Charlie’s still feeling like a prize-winning chump for not laying eyes on them earlier.”
“I don’t want you going out there,” said Mary reflexively. “Who knows what those Nazi boys are here for.”
“I do,” Cabot said simply. “We all do. But, look,” he said, spreading his hands as if to apologize for the late-night intrusion, “we’ve got a plan to deal with them. Meeting tomorrow morning—Cody, you’re invited. As for the rest,” he said to Emma, “I’d encourage you to talk to people about these dreams and to be candid about them. Putting things into words is the first hurdle, and then you can work them out.”
“Thanks, John,” she said. “And I’m sorry again.”
“Not a problem.” He gave Jacob a neat salute, then nodded to his tired, patient mom and dad. “Breakfast at seven,” he said, head
ing for the door, “and meeting at eight. Sleep well.”
29
The Russell Homestead The Next morning (Day 6)
As soon as the breakfast dishes were cleared, and perhaps two-thirds of the camp’s members had begun their various chores, Cabot gathered with five other people at the tables in his cabin. “All right, looks like we got a quorum. Meeting is called to order.”
Next to Cody sat Will Delmonico, or ‘Del’ to his friends, a tall twenty-something who preferred not to say much, in Cody’s experience. All he offered this morning was a quietly excited speculation: “Guess the boss has something for us.”
“We’ve landed ourselves in the midst of a supply problem, gentlemen,” Cabot explained. “Mira and Henry are both diabetic, and they need an insulin re-up every month. I can’t help thinking that Fed-Ex might not be able to make it this time. Plus, we’re low on a couple of nutritional supplements, and I’d like to build up our first aid supplies a little more. So, gentlemen, it appears we’re going shopping.”
It would not be much like a regular grocery run, they all knew. “We takin’ the truck?” asked Del.
“It’s tempting, but we can’t,” Cabot replied. “Its engine is loud, distinctive, and the only one for miles. We’d be asking for trouble.” They talked through some other possibilities, but for all the convenience of driving to the pharmacy, the thought of being hijacked and letting some drunken joyriders take the Dodge was unconscionable.
“Besides, it wouldn’t fit more than four of us. Guess we’re doing this the old-fashioned way,” said Cody. “How far?”
“Slayton Mill is about twenty-four miles,” said Cabot, “as the crow flies, which means about thirty-one on the ground.” He unfurled a map on the dining table; it was already covered with reminders (stream floods in late March) and warnings (narrow ford, caution), as well as possible foraging (blueberries), carefully inscribed in green pen. “It’ll be a hike and no mistake. And we have to get out and back quickly, in case those two assholes and their friends decide to take a closer look at our camp.”
“Like, how quickly?” asked Charlie. He felt strong enough for the challenge but doubted some of the older men could keep up.
“Here we are at 8 am on Tuesday,” said Cabot. “We’ll peel out in an hour, maybe two, once we’re all loaded up. March until an hour after sunset, and then get bivouacs up and grab some shut-eye. Early start, and complete the walk-in tomorrow. We’ll either sleep in one of the buildings near the pharmacy or if that won’t work, double back into the woods and camp there. Thursday will be hard, but by Friday afternoon, I’d hope to be back here.”
“Roger,” said Charlie.
“Epic,” said Max, immediately excited about the mission.
“Hopefully not,” Cabot said. “Ain’t no reason this can’t be a nice, simple excursion.”
“Just a walk in the woods, huh?” said Cody. His fitness levels weren’t what they’d been in the past, and he was all but certain to be shown up by the younger guys. But this was a chance to contribute and to see the land which surrounded his father’s homestead. Or was it his place, by now, truly?
“All right. Who’s bringing a long gun?” asked Cabot, and the men began haggling and debating. Charlie, Bryce, and Max had their own weapons—technically, long-term loans in the latter two cases—and Cabot would bring his own elderly but dependable M-16 derivative. “Cody, what about you?”
“Just my nine mil’,” he said.
“Okay, but a carbine weighs plenty, so you get to carry more gear.”
“Sounds fair.”
“Great. Get your gear together and say your goodbyes. Back on Friday,” he reiterated.
It was a busy hour. They prepared water and food for five days—one day extra, in case of delay—and divided up the canteens, packages of ramen and rice, fruit bars, and other snacks until the loads looked right. There were tents to organize and hiking boots to check over and re-lace. And then the weapons and ammunition, stored in hip pouches for quick access.
As Cody had feared, Mary wasn’t particularly thrilled at the news of this expedition. “Can’t you leave that stuff to the kids?” she said. “You haven’t done anything like this in ages.”
“It’s not like I forgot how to walk a long way,” he said. “And they’ll have my back. Worst thing I can imagine is getting out of breath and making a fool of myself.”
“Really?” she said skeptically. “My imagination is a lot more vivid than yours.”
“I asked Cabot if I could take Jacob…”
“And he told you that was a ridiculous idea, I hope?” she said swiftly.
“Something like that. But it won’t be long before he’s able to do more.”
“Great. I’ve got Corporal Cody wandering around in a dark and dangerous forest, and soon we’ll have Cadet Jacob doing the same.”
Ultimately, though, she did understand that Cody had to go along. “This is dad’s property,” he explained. “I want to see what’s around here. And it’s not like we can jump into the truck and go for a spin.” That would have to wait until there were many other cars on the road so that theirs didn’t stand out quite so much, but that milestone seemed months away, still.
“Just be careful,” she said. “Like, more careful walking through the woods even than you are at work.”
“I can do that.”
Emma was even less pleased at her father’s departure. “If you run into them, out there,” she said, “what are you going to do?”
“Follow Cabot’s instructions.”
“And if they shoot at you?” she asked, her fingers knotted with anxiety.
“No one’s gonna shoot at your dad,” said Mary. “Why waste the ammunition? He’s just a welder.”
“He’s a homesteader,” interjected Jacob. “And this place is his.”
“Ours,” said Cody, tousling his son’s hair.
“Sure, ours. And it’s a place worth fighting for.”
“Let’s hope I won’t need to, buddy,” said Cody as he gathered the last of his things. He leaned down and whispered, “You’re in charge, but there’s no need to tell the others. Just do what I’d do.”
Then he kissed his wife and children, hoisted his rucksack, and went out to meet the others.
30
1.2 miles east of the Russell Homestead Later the same day
Walking together in dappled sunshine, the first two hours of the trek were pleasant, even freeing. Cabot didn’t mind some conversation, although, past a certain point, he knew he’d have to impose hand signals. This necessitated some hasty learning for Cody, the only member of the team who had yet to benefit from Cabot’s constant training program.
“Watch,” said Cabot. “It’s intuitive and easy. Plus, we’ll only teach you a handful.” He showed Cody the gesture for “halt,” which was recognizable from various military TV shows, and the related signal for “stop, look, listen and smell.” Other gestures included “take a knee,” which extended into “lay prone,” and the various signs to indicate enemy contact. “Want to try ‘em out?” offered Cabot.
The first rehearsal was a humiliating shambles, but after that, Cody caught on quickly. The group placed him in the center of the line of seven men, with Charlie leading as usual, and Cabot bringing up the rear. In this way, they made quick progress along the rough path, which angled through the forest, stripping off long-sleeved shirts as the late-morning temperature started to climb. By lunchtime, they were 3.8 miles from camp and stopped only for an energy bar and some water. “Long ways to go,” Cabot warned them, “so let’s not get too used to resting.”
Before the inevitable imposition of “noise discipline,” as Cabot called it, Cody had the chance to ask the old man a little more about the past as they walked along. “John, what happened to Alice?” was his first question.
“I figured you’d be asking. Of course, we said she could stay, but I guess she didn’t feel like being here without ol’ Grover. Her health wasn’t great. She was
probably hitting seventy by the time he died, and things here don’t get easier when time catches up with you. Me, I’ll stay as long as I can patrol and skin rabbits, but Alice made other plans. Went back to Manchester, but after that, I’m ashamed to say we have no idea what became of her. Once this craziness is over, that’d be where I’d start looking, if you were so inclined.”
“I think I will,” said Cody. “They made each other happy, and I have her to thank for that. The whole thing will take some explaining,” he added, “especially as he never told me about her.” Cody wondered if his father had even made mention to Alice of his own children, or the two grandkids he’d never met, and never would. “Guess he just wanted to keep things to himself.”
Then, Cabot quieted the group and made hand signals mandatory. “You got a problem, or a question, you tap the guy in front, and he does the same on down the line until you get the lead man’s attention. You see something, signal like crazy but don’t shout, for Christ’s sake. I will be personally extremely pissed if we are spotted by the enemy during our woodland traverse. And you know who I’ll be taking it out on?”
“Me?” assumed Charlie.
“Oh, everyone will get it in the neck,” Cabot reassured him. “You’ll just get it a little more than the others.” Then the impossible-to-please grandfather gave his long-suffering grandson the signal, and their septet marched on into the afternoon.
Following Bryce’s boot prints and assuming Del was following his, Cody fell into a reverie. There was a joy to be found here, in these remote woods, from the simple knowledge that this land was his. With the exception of their family apartment, Cody had never owned property, and the apparent vastness of this stretch of personal wilderness thrilled him. His father had chosen to gift him not only a home, albeit a simple one, but also considerable wooded acreage; it reminded him of some British aristocratic family, handing down land through the generations, in the hopes that those who received it might think of something profitable to do with it.
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