Going Home

by A. American

  The crossing went without incident, save one more foot extraction. On the other side, I hunkered down in the brush for a minute to get my bearings with the compass. From my work on the map earlier, I knew I had to take a heading of about 150 degrees and follow it pretty close. I wanted to hit a strip of land that ran through a chain of lakes, to the east of the bombing range. Norm’s guys had mentioned that something was going on over there, and I didn’t want to get too close to it.

  Poor Norm; I started to think about him and his boys. I wondered how Daniel was doing. No time for that; checking the compass, I started out on my heading. It felt like squirrel hunting, the way I was slipping through the swamp, checking the ground for each step, using what I call the fox walk. This was something I read about a long time ago and started using while hunting. Instead of coming down on the heel of the foot, your foot comes down on the outside edge of the ball. Then you roll your foot into the step with the heel coming down last. If there was anything underfoot, you could usually feel it and either reposition it or move your foot. It was not as effective in these Bellevilles, but it still worked.

  I was closer to the campground than I suspected. The smell of cooking fires was drifting through the woods, and I thought I heard something. It was clanking, like pots and pans or something, although I couldn’t be sure with the tinnitus ringing in my ears. I sure wish I had used more hearing protection in my younger days. My head stayed on a swivel—take a step, listen, take a step, and listen. This made for very, very slow progress, but it was still light out, and I didn’t want to stumble upon anyone. My clothes were earth tones and not camo; so if anyone looked my way, they would likely see me. Getting closer to the campground, the noise picked up. There was no doubt many people were here. If I remember right, I should be east of the Fern Hammock loop. It was one of the primitive loops and had some pretty nice campsites in it.

  The closer I got, the louder the sounds of people became. Fortunately, it was by now getting on about six o’clock and the light was starting to fade, especially under the canopy I was walking through. Mixed with the smell of wood smoke was the scent of cooking food. I couldn’t discern any one aroma in particular; it was several things mixed into a potpourri of smells. I caught brief glimpses of flames through the brush and the occasional voice, never much and always fleeting. Before I even realized, I was past the campground. The first indicator was the silence, other than the change of the critter shift. All the squirrels were gone now; some birds were calling from their nests, and the night shift was coming on.

  As luck would have it, I had come down a finger of the swamp that came right to the edge of Highway 40. The light was almost gone now, so I dropped the pack and took a knee. Finding the NVGs, I pulled them out and strapped them to my head, turning them on. Giving the tube a minute to warm up, I sat in the dark listening to the sounds of the night shift. A sudden noise to my seven o’clock caused me to spin around and raise the AK, flipping it off safe. Something was moving out there, probably an animal, but better safe than sorry. I flipped the goggles down and looked out into the woods.

  I couldn’t see anything; there was nothing to see, but the sounds continued to increase. It sounded as if a pack of wild hogs was coming through the bush. I knew what was out there, but it didn’t help my heart rate at the moment. As my heart pounded in my ears, the beast of the darkness came out into view. The first thing I saw was his fiery eyes in the glow of the goggles. He was low to the ground and was coming right at me. It sounded like he was dragging a mountain bike on its side behind him.

  Then he came fully into view—his armored shell and long tail. A damn armadillo makes more noise than any other animal out there. In a dark and spooky place, they can scare the absolute shit of you! I started to giggle to myself. These damn things had caused me increased heart rate while deer hunting, standing in a stand in the quiet. One of them starts through the underbrush, and you can just see the ginormous fourteen-point buck; his rack looks like a rocking chair on his head.

  With my attention back on the task at hand, I spent some time looking out at Highway 40. I couldn’t see anything either way; there was nothing to cause any concern. Satisfied there wasn’t anything out there, I eased up to the edge of the bush and made a rush across the road. I just knew someone had to have heard me. The pack jumping around, the weapons and mags, and other associated gear sounded as if I was dragging a tin trash can across the damn road with me.

  • • •

  “Well, what’s the plan, Sarge?” Mike asked after taking a sip from his cup.

  Sarge sat there with the cup in his lap, holding it with both hands. He was staring down into it and swirling the coffee around. “It all depends, really. We need some more info. Those kids they sent out to look for you isn’t a good sign.”

  Doc was holding his cup up, looking at it suspiciously. “Yeah, seems a little heavy handed,” he said.

  “It would appear they are playing for keeps,” Sarge said, still looking into the cup.

  “But for what? What the hell are they planning on doing? What’s the point? They talked up that flare for a week before it went off. Everyone knew it was coming, just not that it would cause this much damage,” Ted said.

  Sarge stood up. “The flare didn’t cause all this damage. No doubt it contributed to it, but not all this. There’s more at work here. And as for why, the current administration has made no attempt to conceal their desire for a fundamental shift in this country. Remember, he said he was going to transform this nation. Well, what better chance? What if—and this is just a crazy old retired vet talking here, you know, one of the guys on the DHS watch list—they either detonated or allowed to be detonated an EMP type device?”

  “That’s a bit of a stretch,” Doc said, finally risking a sip from the cup he had been inspecting.

  “Maybe, but what better cover? Hell, there may not even have been a flare. I don’t know. We don’t know enough yet, but we have to figure this out,” Sarge replied.

  The men stood there in silence, drinking their coffee and looking out into the swamp. The sounds of the swamp coming to life were all around them, and the swamp was filled with fog rising off the water. Finally, Sarge spoke up. “We need to get this place up and operational. The panels need to be installed to collect as much sunlight as possible while being somewhat concealed. We need to get the radios set up and the power supply—that’s our first priority. Ted, I want you to get the radio you had and the one we got off those boys set up, and start monitoring them for any traffic. Just do not, under any circumstances, key the mic, understand?”

  “Roger that.” Ted went over and began to open some of the Pelican cases they brought, pulling out radios and carrying them inside.

  “Mike, I need you and Doc to set up the panels. There should be enough cable to run it back into the cabin. I’ll work on setting up my rigs. We also need to pull the battery from one of the boats and put it in mine. I’m going to rig one of the radios in it so that we can move away from here to transmit if we need to.”

  “Where do you want to put the panels?” Doc asked.

  Sarge stepped out to the edge of the deck and pointed up into a large cypress tree. “See that bracket up there? That’s where I hang a couple of them when I am out here hunting. Put them up there.”

  “Don’t you mean poaching, when you’re out here poaching?” Mike said with a snicker.

  Sarge looked over at him. “Do you want to go swimming?” He turned and went into the cabin.

  Doc stood there on the deck, looking at Mike. “How long have you guys known him?”

  “Hell, seven, maybe eight years. Why?” Mike was looking up at the bracket in the tree.

  “I know you guys all know each other, and I trust you guys, but this is all getting a little crazy, don’t ya think?” Doc was staring out into the water.

  “You got a better idea? We talked about some of this before we ever
left. Those assholes with DHS have a real hard-on right now. They just can’t wait for the chance to go out and kill a bunch of people. You remember when they started talking about providing aid? Who was and wasn’t on that list? Their plan to confiscate weapons, to find anyone who had stored anything—food, water, fuel, and, certainly weapons—and take it all? How it was unfair that some of those extremists had hoarded all that stuff. I think the old man is right, and the shit is really about to hit the fan.” Mike was looking right at him when he replied.

  “You’re right, I just never thought the army I know and love would ever go for something like this,” he said with a hint of sorrow in his voice.

  “It’s not. That’s why they sent the amateur hour out to look for us. You didn’t see anyone from the teams around, did you? You on board with this?” he asked.

  “Yeah, not like there is any choice. If what Sarge said is true, then I am damn sure on board,” Doc replied, setting his cup down. “He makes the worst coffee I’ve ever tasted. Let’s get to work.” Mike slapped him on the back, and the two set about finding all the equipment they needed to set up the power system.

  Back in the cabin, Ted was setting up the crypto gear, and Sarge was setting up his system. “We need some more table space, Sarge,” Ted called out as he set the second radio on the little table.

  “Yeah, we’re going to have to make a run into town tonight and hit the hardware store for some lumber. We’ll build some here and some shelves. I have a little bit left over from building this place. Out back is one of them plastic garden storage things. There’s tools and shit in there. Let me set this up, and we’ll see what we got,” he said as he set the big radio on the kitchen counter.

  Ted and Sarge walked outside. Mike called over to Sarge as soon as they came out. “Hey, old man, how in the hell do you expect us to get up there?” he said, pointing up the big tree.

  “What, you can’t climb a tree?” he fired back.

  “How in the hell do you expect me to climb that? There isn’t a limb for thirty freaking feet,” Mike said.

  “Come on, Junior, follow me.” Sarge headed around behind the cabin. He went over to the big cabinet and opened it up. Inside was an assortment of stuff—tools, hardware, and other junk. He reached down into the bottom and pulled up a small cloth bag and handed it to Mike. “Use these.”

  Mike took the bag and opened it. Inside was a bunch of the screw-in tree steps. Mike held one up, looking at it. “Nice. I like ’em.”

  “Kind of hard to keep a ladder around here,” Sarge replied.

  Mike and Doc took the steps and went back out front. Looking at the tree, Mike found the existing holes from where Sarge had screwed these things in many times before. After screwing in the ones he could from ground level, he took a length of rope and a carabiner from his pack. Looping the rope around the tree, he clipped it to the D ring of his rigger’s belt with the carabiner. Climbing up those first steps, he hitched the rope up the tree with his free hand. Once he was high enough to put the next steps in, he leaned back against the rope. Repeating this process, Mike was up high enough to hang the panels.

  The bracket already had the bolts and hardware to secure the panels in the holes. Doc threw him a hank of 550 cord, and he used it as a tag line to haul them up one at a time. Using his Leatherman MUT EOD, he tightened all the bolts as he set the panels in place. With the panels in place, Doc tied the end of the cable on, and Mike pulled it up and connected it to the cables coming off the panels.

  “Hey, Doc, see if he has a hammer or something and something to secure the wire to the tree with,” Mike called out.

  Doc went out back and found a hammer and some Romex cable nail-in straps and brought them out. He dumped the straps into the bag the steps were in and tied it and the hammer to the cord. Mike pulled it up and secured the cable as he came down. This time, though, he had trouble getting his safety rope around the step. “What a pain in the ass!” he complained as he was trying to free the rope from a step.

  Doc fed the cable from the panels into the cabin through a hole that Sarge had made just for the purpose. He and Mike went about setting up the batteries, charge controller, and inverter on one side of the cabin. The location of the panels was not exactly ideal, but Sarge had trimmed away branches in the past to give a decent southerly exposure and enough light to keep the batteries up if they conserved their power consumption. Sarge looked up and realized that all four men were inside the cabin. They had all been so busy with their assigned tasks that no one even realized that there wasn’t a watch posted.

  “Hey, you bunch of dickheads! What’s wrong with this picture?” he shouted out. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around at one another. Doc was the first one to catch on. “I’ll go out and keep an eye on things, Sarge.” He went over to the door and picked his rifle up from where it was leaning against the wall and went out.

  “At least one of you has some damn sense,” Sarge replied. “We have to keep someone on watch at all times. I know it’s going to be a pain in the ass with only four of us, but we have to do it. Mike, you sit down now and write up a duty schedule, put watch rotation and mess duty on it,” the old man said.

  “Roger that, Sarge,” he replied as he sat down at the table, putting on a set of headphones to listen to the radio while he worked on the schedule.

  “You guys hungry?” Sarge asked. Ted nodded to him; even Mike looked up and nodded his head.

  Then from outside came a “Yyeesss!” from Doc.

  “All right, I’ll rustle some grub up for us,” Sarge said.

  Sarge went over to his kitchen and set out his Coleman Dual Fuel stove on what was left of the counter space. Going outside, he rooted around in the cooler he loaded from the kitchen of the house and carried in a bag of taters and onions. After lighting the stove, he set a big cast-iron skillet out on it, black as coal, and dropped a big spoon of Crisco in it. Grabbing the little bottle of dish soap on the sink, he washed his hands. He had a cutting board that fit over the sink. Setting it out, he started to cut the spuds. When the spuds were chopped, he dumped them in the skillet and started chopping the onions. After adding them to the taters, he put a lid from the Dutch oven over it and cleaned his cutting board.

  Going back out to the cooler, he came back with a dozen eggs. From under the counter, he pulled out three cans of salmon and opened them. Emptying them into a bowl, he cracked in a couple of eggs and added some onions he saved when he chopped them up. Reaching back under the counter, he found a half can of Italian bread crumbs and poured those in till it felt right. With everything in the bowl, he mixed it all together with his hands and formed the mix into cakes.

  He lit the other burner on the stove and set another skillet out and dropped in another spoon of shortening. While it melted, he stirred the taters around, making sure nothing was sticking. With the grease melted, he added four of the cakes to the skillet and got down to some serious cooking. The little cabin filled with the aroma of cooking onions; add to that the smell of the salmon, and it was enough to drive you mad. It brought all work inside the cabin to a standstill as the guys looked over his shoulder. Sarge pulled the ever-present dish towel off his shoulder and swatted at them. “You got shit to do; git!” Ted and Mike both went about looking busy while they waited for the food.

  Once everything was ready, he served plates heaped with taters and onions and a couple of salmon patties each and handed two of them out to Mike and Ted. Walking over to the door, he picked up his rifle and stepped out. “Doc, go on in there and eat.”

  “Hey, thanks. That smells damn good,” he replied.

  “Just hurry up; I ain’t eat yet either,” Sarge fired off in reply.

  Doc went in and ate with the other two, while Sarge sat in his camp chair on the deck.

  Chapter 11

  “Daddy!” a little voice called out. Thad looked up from his wife and saw his son co
ming down the stairs of the house. His mother was standing in the open door.

  Little Tony ran up to him; Thad knelt down to catch him. The little boy wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. “Where have you been, Daddy? You were supposed to come home a long time ago.”

  “I was working on it, buddy; I was working on it,” Thad replied with tears in eyes.

  He stood up, picking the boy up with him. Anita came up and took his hand, her little hand disappearing into his. As they walked up the stairs, Thad’s mother was leaning on her cane in the doorway. “’bout time you gots yoself home,” she said. Leaning the cane against the doorframe, she reached out with both hands for his face. He had to stoop down for her to grab it. Tilting his head, she kissed his forehead. “You sho’ need a haircut.” She chuckled.

  Thad reached up and rubbed the quarter inch of hair on his head. “Yeah, getting a lil shaggy.” He gave out a little laugh.

  They walked into the house, and he fell into his easy chair. He hadn’t even thought of it the whole time he was gone, but now that he was home and sitting in it, it was the most comfortable thing he had ever sat in. Anita left the room as little Tony jumped into his lap, Thad reclined the chair all the way back, and Tony lay down on his chest. Anita came out of the kitchen with a plate, a sandwich on it, along with some okra and rice. Thad’s mother put up her hand. “Let him be, sweetie, look at him. He plumb wore out. Let him be. He home now an’ that’s all that matters.”

  • • •

  Farles Lake was about a four-and-a-half-mile walk as the crow flies from my current location, so it would probably take a little bit longer than that, as I could not simply walk a perfectly straight line out here. Once I hit the other side of the road, I stopped and listened for anyone who may have been around. There wasn’t a sound. It’s funny how paranoid you can get.

  Just as I was about to take off again, looking out into the scrub I had to hike through reminded me of the ticks ’n’ chiggers. My clothes were treated, and that should help, but I was going to increase the odds. Dropping the pack, I tucked my shirt in and buttoned the sleeves at the wrists. I bloused my pants inside my boots, buttoned the shirt all the way up, and even dug around in the Devildog until I found my buff and pulled it over my head, tucking the opening under my chin, and put my hat back on. After stuffing the loose end of the buff into my shirt, I was as armored against the damn bugs as I could get.