by A. American
Pulling out his sleeping bag, he laid it out on the front seat of the truck. He laid the pack on the floorboard and crawled into the bag. As he was getting settled into the bag, he thought about cracking the windows to prevent condensation. Looking up at the huge hole in the glass where the cab met the windshield and then back to the hole in the rear glass, he thought it was pointless. Thad tried to get comfortable on the bench seat; he had his shotgun lying on the bench in front of him and the Glock in his bag with him. He stuck the Ruger into the door handle by his head and tried to go to sleep.
A noise woke him up. He opened his eyes and gripped the shotgun. The noise was coming from the rear of the truck. There was definitely someone in the bed of the truck. He heard them going through the junk scattered there. He lay there cursing himself in his mind for sleeping. Here he was wrapped up in a damn bag and someone had snuck up on him.
He lay there for another minute, weighing his options. Certainly they knew he was there, but maybe they thought he was asleep. With his head against the passenger door, he partially saw out the driver’s window and most of the windshield. Only, from this angle, Shaq could be standing in front of the truck, and he wouldn’t be able to see him. Turning his head slightly, he looked up at the hole in the rear window. There were some cracks radiating from it. He settled on a plan; he would sit up as fast as he could and shove the barrel of the shotgun through the glass and fire at whoever was out there.
The noise grew louder, and Thad steeled his nerves and, with a guttural scream, bolted upright. He shoved the shotgun through the glass with such force that the knuckles on his left hand wrapped around the fore end went through the glass. The scream, combined with the sound of the shotgun tearing through the glass, caused the three raccoons in the bed of the truck to jump straight up. One of the poor critters was in line with the barrel when Thad pulled the trigger, turning it into a red mist of goo that flew over the tailgate. The other two made for the brush, making more noise than the Confederate army marching onto the Dade Battlefield.
• • •
I looked over at Roy. “You guys got any comms?”
He looked at me and replied, “We have some. Power is the biggest issue, especially with portable radios.”
I took that to mean they either had CBs or hams. CB would be bad for long-range comms, but maybe they weren’t worried about it. We were all standing around; I wasn’t planning on leaving until after dark. I didn’t know what these guys were planning.
“What are you guys gonna do?” I asked them as a group.
They all looked around at one another. Norm finally spoke up. “We’re headed over to the range. Since you’re headed that way, why don’t you come with us?”
Here was the conundrum—I didn’t know these guys, but there was safety in numbers. These guys looked pretty well equipped and hadn’t done anything to threaten me; if they wanted to, they could have killed me. Just a couple more questions to make me feel better about it.
“What are you guys going to do when you get there?” I asked the group again.
Again, Norman answered me, “We’re just going to look around. See what’s going on over there—if anything is going on over there.”
“You guys mentioned helicopters. Have you seen any?” I asked.
“No, we’ve heard them and been told by others, but we haven’t seen any,” Norman replied.
“What if you do see one?” This was what I was really curious about.
“Shoot it down,” Frank replied.
Norman shot him a look. “He’s kidding. We just want to have a look.”
“Well, I’m not ready to take on the military yet. I have seen their helicopters and don’t want any part of them,” I replied.
This statement brought raised eyebrows from them. They looked around at one another again. I went on to explain about seeing the Kiowa. I didn’t tell them about seeing it right after I used the radio. I still hadn’t told them about having it yet. There was quite the conversation about why no one had seen any others, and why I saw a Kiowa and not an Apache or other gunship. These guys were full of theories. I just wanted to get home. Listening to enough of their banter, I finally asked when they planned to leave.
“We’re ready anytime,” Norman answered.
“You guys move during the day?” I asked. This surprised me.
“Yeah, like I said, we haven’t seen any helicopters and have a pretty good idea where they are, so moving during the day isn’t an issue to us,” Norman replied.
I shouldered my pack, and we started out. Daniel was in the lead, then Norm, Roy, me, and Frank, who was bringing up the rear. We started out heading southeast, walking single file and as quietly as we could. We hit a paved road in less than half a mile. When the road came into view, Daniel held up a fist and slowly started to drop to one knee. The others all did likewise. Seeing the hand signal, I was reacting as well. Frank put a hand on my shoulder, applying a little pressure. That kind of bugged me. I turned my head slightly to one side.
“I know. You don’t have to worry about me.” Frank pulled his hand away without saying anything. Daniel approached the road, slowly, very cautiously. Slipping up to the road, he took a long look. We probably sat there for fifteen minutes.
Daniel finally started to rise. We all followed him. Moving up to where he was, everyone took up a position where we could provide over-watch. Daniel went first, in a rush. He provided cover for the rest of us, each taking a position of cover on the opposite side of the road. All this seemed a little ridiculous to me. We weren’t in combat, after all. We had to execute the same procedure on another road. This one happened exactly like the previous, with the exception that Frank didn’t grab my shoulder.
Late afternoon in the piney woods was nice. This area was nothing but pines. There was some underbrush, palmettos, and cleared chops. The palmetto flats were a little rough to try to push through. As we were bulling our way through one particularly rough patch, I suddenly had a horrible thought. Ticks. I could only imagine how many ticks I would have on me. I hadn’t worried about bugs in some time—no skeeters and no bugs. But this place was without a doubt overrun with ticks. Note to self, strip down and do a body check.
As we walked along, I pulled the notebook out and consulted the codes for today. The way the code was written, it was a simple revolving system, with an offset. So each day I just went to the next page, simple and effective. The offset in time from our radio encounter put me calling about five o’clock. It was almost that time. I was nervous about letting these guys in on the fact that I had a radio, but I was going to call in to Sarge and hang out a bit and call home.
“Hey, guys, I need to hold up,” I said in a low voice.
They all turned around and looked at me. “I need to do something.” They still just stood there, looking sort of expectantly at me. Dropping my pack, I took out the antenna and the slick line and looked for a suitable tree; the choices were endless. Picking one out, I tossed the line up and pulled up the antenna. Roy looked over at me. “You got a radio?”
I was attaching the antenna when he asked. “Yeah, a little one,” I replied.
Roy walked over, the others taking up a defensive perimeter. He looked down at the Yaesu. “Yeah, it’s little, but that’s one hell of a radio,” he said with an edge to his voice. “Where did you get that?”
“From a friend of mine. Do you guys have hams?” I asked him without looking up.
“We have one that we use to listen with. You aren’t going to transmit with that thing, are you?” His brow was furrowed; his eyes were kinda squinted.
“Maybe, I’m checking to see if someone is on the air,” I replied. Finished hooking up the antenna, I looked up at him.
Roy looked over at Norman. “No wonder he’s seen a Kiowa. They’re tracking his signal.”
Norman looked over at me. “When was the last time you transm
itted? Where were you?”
“It’s been a while, and I was far away from here. Long before I ever got to the bridge,” I answered.
“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t transmit right now, least not while we’re here,” Roy said.
“I know what you guys are worried about, but I don’t think they—whoever they are—have the ability to triangulate. Each time I saw the birds, they were always searching around; only once did it ever fly right over me. Even then, it didn’t see me,” I said as I was plugging the headset in. I flipped the power switch and started to sift through the frequencies. I knew what freq Sarge would be on but didn’t go straight to it. The radio traffic was picking up. Slowing on one freq, I caught a ham near DC. He said the city was absolute chaos. You couldn’t go outside, and even if you stayed inside and someone noticed you were there, you ran the risk of being overrun. I never heard whom he was talking to. The guy must have breathed through his ears, as he never let up. What came next on the station shocked the shit out of us.
In a very clear transmission came, “Transmitting station, you are in violation of executive order 10995. Under the rules of martial law, you are ordered to cease all transmissions and disable your transmitter immediately. Any further transmissions will result in severe consequences.”
The transmission was repeated. As it began to repeat, I motioned for Roy and Norman to come over. Each of them put one side of the headset to an ear and listened. Their eyes grew wide, both of them looking at me. I simply nodded my head. When the transmission was done, they handed the headset back. I cupped one earpiece to my head in time to hear the guy near DC come back over the air.
“What the fuck are you doing? We need help, and you’re telling me to get off the radio! Send me fucking help before these animals kill us all!” he screeched into the radio.
I looked over at Norman. “This guy is screaming back at them.”
“What are they saying to him?” Roy asked.
“Telling him to shut the fuck up, basically,” I replied. I spun the dial on the radio to the freq I was expecting Sarge to come up on. I usually called him, but I hoped today he called me. The hisses, pops, and whines filled the earpiece as I tried to tune the radio. Suddenly, it all cleared as a signal came up in Sarge’s gravelly voice. Two words came through the speaker. “Broke Dick.”
“What the hell?” I said out loud, reaching for the notebook in my cargo pocket. Flipping it open, I went through page after page, looking for “Broke Dick.” On the back of the last page, against the hardcover, I found a few rather colorful codes. This particular one coincided with what I just heard on the radio. Martial law had been declared, and radio transmissions were being DF’d. DF stood for direction finding. Well, no shit, Sarge. I just sat there. He had a printed reply that I was to make, just a couple of clicks of the PTT button. I decided my reply was better and just as short.
Keying the mic for a second, I replied, “No shit, Sherlock,” and released the mic. I can only imagine the colors that old bastard’s face turned when I did it.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t going to transmit!” Roy shouted at me.
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t. You asked me not to, but I didn’t commit either way. Did you catch the part about martial law?” I asked.
“Yeah, we heard it. Figured it would happen sooner or later,” Norm said.
“You guys still heading for the range?” I asked.
“This doesn’t really change anything for us,” Norm replied.
After taking down the antenna and packing all the radio gear, we started back out toward the range. Our current position was just south of Kerr Lake. Norm’s crew had a topo map of the area. After a quick check, it appeared we were about fifteen miles from the range. Fifteen miles of scrub between us and it. Man, this was going to suck. After a short discussion, we all agreed to go over to Kerr Lake before heading to the range. This crew had a place on the east side of the lake, and we all needed some water and rest.
They wanted to check in with their people too about what we just heard on the radio before heading to the range. Since this crew hadn’t done anything to make me suspect any foul play, I agreed. After all, if they wanted anything I had, I would never have woken up from my nap.
We walked east toward the lake in the fading sun. The air was cool, and the evening was nice. The sounds of the insects in the piney woods filled the air, disturbed only by the soft crunch of our boots on the sand. We were walking down a dirt road. I personally thought this a little foolhardy but was assured that we were in no danger out here “in the sticks.” The little road broke out into a clear-cut area right at dark. Leaving the relative comfort of the trees, we headed across the chop and came to a road called Moorhead Park, which led to a boat ramp on the lake. As we approached the lake, the temp seemed to drop; it felt cooler closer to the water.
We walked down to the water’s edge. The view across the lake was beautiful. The western horizon was a beautiful shade of rose. I actually felt kind of relaxed. The eastern sky in front of me was a deep blue, almost black. Roy came up to where I was on the dock. I had walked out onto it, one of those floating ones. “Hey, can you set up your radio?” he asked. He was standing beside me with his arms folded across his chest, looking across the lake.
“Oh, now you want to use it?” I half laughed.
“Well, I thought we’d call a cab, unless you want to swim.” He nodded across the lake.
“Gonna call your folks on the other side?” I asked him without looking over.
“Yeah, they have the radio on. I know what freqs they monitor, so I’ll call for a boat,” he replied.
“Sure, I could use a boat ride,” I said.
We walked back to where I had dropped my pack on the bank. No one had tried to get the radio themselves. That made me feel a little better about this whole detour. I set up the radio, throwing the antenna up through a rather short tree, but no farther than he was going to transmit, it should be fine. After getting it set up, Roy came over and knelt down.
“Hey, uh, you mind giving me some privacy here?” he asked.
That made me a little nervous. What didn’t he want me to hear? “Well, that makes me a little nervous, ya know.”
“I dig it. It’s not like we’re setting you up for anything. It’s just that we don’t know you. Just like you don’t know us, we don’t want you to know our call signs and freqs,” he replied.
That actually made sense to me but still made me a little uncomfortable. I agreed, however, and walked off toward the lake again, my carbine slung over my shoulder. Roy made his call, and a few minutes later, he came up beside me on the dock. “Thanks, man; our ride’s on its way.” Far across the lake, the faint sound of an outboard motor could be heard, but it sounded far, far away.
• • •
Mike had the pin in the old Evinrude changed in no time. All the while, Sarge sat in the driver’s seat with his boots up on the engine’s cowl, drinking a beer. Mike finished up and climbed back in the boat. Sarge handed him a cold beer as his reward.
“Thanks, Sarge.”
“You earned it; just don’t wreck my damn boat again,” he said with a sly grin.
“Deal,” Mike said as he turned the bottle up and drained half of it in one long pull. “Damn, that’s good. Of all the things in the world I’m going to miss, cold beer will be the worst.” He turned the bottle up and drained it. “On a hot day, I’d almost suck a dick for a cold beer.”
Sarge looked up at the young warrior. “Really, hmm.”
Mike got a worried look on his face. “I didn’t mean literally, dammit!”
“Who you tryin’ to convince, me or yourself?” Sarge jabbed back. He used a paddle to push the boat off the sandbar and into the river and then sat down and lowered the outboard into the water and started it up. Putting it in gear, he headed back down the river. The other two boats fell in
line. Mike stepped up to the bow and picked up the SPW and sat down on the cooler as Sarge flipped his goggles down.
The rest of the trip up the river to Turkey Island went uneventfully. They made it without seeing another boat. Passing the island, Sarge knew that after two more turns in the river, his little canal would be on the right. Slowing the boat, he began to scan the river’s edge. It didn’t take long to find it—the little cut that ran off to the north. He followed the river until it was nearly the width of the boat.
“Catch that tree ahead,” Sarge told Mike.
Mike stood up, and Sarge brought the boat slowly up to a large old cypress tree. The other two boats came up from behind and shifted into neutral, letting the boats drift up and form a chain. Ted was looking around. “Now what?”
“Keep yer panties on, Maggie,” Sarge said as he stepped up to the bow of the boat. Lying over the side, he reached down into the black water and groped around. “Dammit, where are ya? Come on, what the hell?”
“There ain’t no oysters down there, ya know,” Ted called out.
Through his goggles, Ted saw the old first sergeant turn to look at him. Even in the dark, it was enough for him to look away into the swamp like a kid would when mom or dad gave them “the look.” Finally, Sarge called out, “Ah ha!” With a grunt, he pulled the end of a large old cypress board out of the water. Pulling the old board up, they saw that it must have been five feet long, three inches thick, and about twelve inches wide—not to mention cut from a cypress log that probably lay in the river for a hundred years. He held it out horizontally over the river.