Also at this point, I took notice of a significant bed of cattails growing alongI was telling the truth.tif the riverbank. After a short inspection, I pulled a dozen or so young plants showing about two feet above the water line, stripped off some of their outer leafs and threw them in my pack. Gabriel wandered over and watched me. I showed him what I was doing and showed him how to identify the newer shoots. Added to the last of our meat, it would make a more nourishing meal when cooked in a broth.
As we detoured away from the water, not more than two hundred yards east, we discovered that all along we had been walking parallel to what used to be a road. We hadn’t been able to see it because of the dark and because it was slightly elevated from the river. It was two lanes wide and heavily blemished with potholes and fissures. We crossed over it in a rush and turned south, still not trusting the easy route because of those who may be watching it.
About a mile later, we encountered yet another orchard and, from what I could tell, a big one. We decided to shelter there for at least a few hours so we could get some sleep. We walked into the heart of it, to a place where we felt fairly safe from view.
While I got a small fire going, Anna tended to Gabriel. She removed the sling and had him gently move the shoulder joint. She also used a small amount of water to wash his injured face. He was in less pain than right after the accident happened, but he still hurt quite a bit. No doubt the traveling we did aggravated things. I felt bad for him, but he didn’t complain at all.
After we ate and put the fire out, we just tromped down the weeds and laid our ponchos over them to sleep on. I agreed to take the first watch. Before Anna went to sleep, I told her that I would soon need to know where we were going and with more specificity than just, “South, toward Oregon.” She assured me that we’d talk about it soon.
We were up by mid-day, still on April 10th, and still the date of this writing. There wasn’t anything to eat so it didn’t take us long to get ready to travel. While Anna got Gabriel all strapped up, I unfolded the map. There was light to read it now, even under the dense canopy of the trees, so I thought I’d see if I could figure out where we were. I also figured it was a good time to get a more accurate destination from Anna.
Looking at the map, I could see that the river we had walked along last night was east of and parallel to Highway 97. I was able to find the canyon where Gabriel took his fall and followed the stream at the bottom of it until it intersected the river. Estimating that we walked for maybe two hours at most along the river, and that we travel at a rate of between two and three miles per hour, meant we were approximately five miles from the intersection. It also meant we were about ten miles from the next town, Sheep Rock, Washington.
About that point, Anna had finished strapping up Gabriel, so I called her over and explained where we were. I then asked her to tell me where we were headed.
Whenever anyone starts out with an explanation after being asked a question, you know you’re not going to get the answer you want. And that’s what she did. She asked me to be understanding of her situation. She said that she took an oath no our enemies wott to reveal the whereabouts of the town to anyone. She explained that if I were to be captured and tortured, I could reveal it to people who would do harm.
For my part, I argued that Mr. Ponytail already knew where the town was so I wouldn’t know anything they didn’t already know. I also argued that if something happened to her or her and Gabriel, how would I be able to warn the town of the impending raid? She acknowledged that those were good points but said I would just have to wait a little longer. She made the comment there was still time before we would need to change direction.
I didn’t say anything further. Instead I just folded up the map and put it away in my pack. To myself, I promised to give her only two more days. After that, if she still didn’t trust me, I’d just tell her that we should go our separate ways.
We started out east, with me in the lead. I was looking for the eastern edge of the orchard. I didn’t want to travel on the west side of it because we’d be within sight of the road we crossed a few hours earlier, in the dark. What I found was even better. It was a north-south dirt and gravel service road that split the orchard in half. Though it was overgrown with weeds and brush, we wouldn’t have any trees or tree branches to contend with, and we would be hidden from view. I turned south at that point.
About twenty minutes into the walk, I heard distant voices. It sounded less conversational and more like angry shouting. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell what direction they were coming from. We looked at one another with this expression of ‘now what’ on our faces, and readied our weapons. This included Gabriel, who held a pistol in his good hand.
No less than five minutes later, I heard more shouting, a woman scream “No,” and several shots being fired. They were definitely coming from the direction of the road — west.
What I did next is something completely out of character for me, and I don’t know why I did it, other than maybe anger over the death of Michael Bass. I told you it changed me. I turned west and started to run. I didn’t even look to see if Anna and Gabriel were behind me. I just dodged my way through the orchard, the weeds soaking my legs. I think I heard another scream while I was doing all that, too.
It took me maybe four or five minutes to reach the western edge of the orchard and that’s where I slowed down and finally stopped. From the concealment of the trees, while I was catching my breath, I looked out toward the road about seventy-five feet away and south another forty or fifty feet. What I saw filled me with rage. It was as if someone twisted my head off and poured it down my neck until it overflowed and puddle around my feet. At that moment, I knew I would kill. I was sure of it. What I didn’t know was how much pleasure I would take in it.
There were three people lying on the ground, two people standing, and one other guy just getting up and pulling up his pants. All the ones standing were men. It was hard to tell the sex of the people on the ground, but I assumed one of them, the one lying at the feet of the man who just stood up, was a woman, and she was moving a bit. emotional connection he fsep
These men were also all armed. One of them was holding a military style rifle of some sort while another had a machete in hand. The third one, the one who had just regained his feet and buttoned his pants, pulled a pistol from his coat pocket.
The three stood there and talked for a little bit. It wasn’t long because this part of the event I’m now describing, took less than a minute total. Of course I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but whatever it was, it caused all of them to laugh. Right in the middle of all this conversation and laughter, the man with the pistol almost casually raised it and fired into the woman on the ground.
The instant after the shot was fired, I heard a noise behind me and saw Gabriel and Anna come up in a crouch. I dropped my pack and told them to stay there and if things didn’t go well for me and I was killed or injured, they should go back the way they came. I didn’t give them a chance to ask questions or tell me I was making a mistake. I just turned toward the road, got on my hands and knees and moved closer. To be honest with you, I don’t think the men would have seen me if I had been standing straight up and whistling the “Star Spangled Banner.” They were too busy running their mouths and going through the pockets of the dead to take notice of anything around them. But still, I crawled.
By the time I reached the road, I could tell the three men were finished with their looting; first stealing another’s life and then stealing his belongings, too. I settled down next to a large bush in a prone position, with my rifle pointing out from under the branches. I cocked the hammer and took the safety off; 158 grains of death pointed downrange, ready to go.
I watched as the one with the machete showed one of the others something he had found on the woman, something small, heard them laugh, and watched them slap high-fives. After that, they started my way.
My hands were shaking at this point but it wasn’t out of fear.
I was just plain pissed off. In fact, other than after shooting Michael Bass, I’ve never been that angry in my entire life. It was like a hum was running through my entire body. I even imagined I could hear it. I hated these men for everything they had done to these three people, for what had been done to Michael Bass, for everything that had been done to us. They became my focus for everything evil.
As the three of them reached a point about thirty feet away, I shot the one carrying the assault rifle, square in the chest. He stood there for a couple of seconds looking down at the hole and the blood, took a stagger step back, and fell to his butt on the ground. The suddenness of my shot stunned the other two long enough that I was able to lever another round and shoot the one with the pistol, in the forehead. He dropped next to the first, who toppled over alongside him. With two of them on the ground, I stood up and pointed my rifle at the one with the machete, which he dropped. As he did that, I held my hand up toward Anna to let her know I didn’t want her to shoot. I next quickly closed the distance to the one still standing. I felt incredibly powerful at that moment. I also felt utterly without conscience.
As I for an hour or sotifgot close to him, I told him to drop to his knees and put his hands on top of his head, which he did without a moment of hesitation.
He begged for his life, and I loathed him for it. There wasn’t a prick of sympathy for him in my body. With tears running down his face, he asked me not to kill him. He said he would do anything. He said he offered me no harm. He said that the other two were the ones who killed the people. He said he was too afraid to stop them. He said he wouldn’t tell anyone he saw me. He went on and on and on until I slapped him across the face and told him to shut up.
When he was quiet, I shot the two men who were already on the ground, one more time each, just to make sure they were dead. (OK, and maybe also because it made me feel good to do it.) In response, the man on his knees let his bladder go. It pooled on the ground between his legs, and I could smell it strong and biting.
I heard Anna and Gabriel running, coming up behind me. When they arrived, Anna blew right on past and hit the kneeling man on the shoulder with the butt of her carbine and kicked him two good ones in the leg. “You shit,” she shouted. “You bastard.” Other than leaning away from her a little, he did nothing to defend himself.
She spun around on me and said, “You’re doing it again. This is stupid. These aren’t chances we should be taking.”
I ignored her challenge. I had momentum, and I wasn’t going to slow it down for either an explanation or an argument.
I first looked at Gabriel and said, “Watch for any others who might be coming this way.”
Next, I turned to Anna, who was still staring at me. “Watch this asshole, and don’t shoot him, understand?”
I admit I was pretty direct in the way I said it, but I really was afraid she’d kill him, and I needed him alive.
For her part, she just stared at me with an, I hate your guts look on her face, so I had to tell her again that I was serious. “I mean it, Anna. I don’t want you to shoot him unless he tries to run off.”
If anything, repeating myself like that just made her angrier with me because she squinted her eyes, turned the corners of her mouth down and leaned in, aiming it all right at me. Close up the way we were, I could even see her nostrils flaring with the breaths she was taking.
When I turned away and walked over to the three people on the ground, I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t hear a gunshot, just out of spite.
Dead on the ground was a man of about thirty-five. He had a hooked nose and a full but trimmed beard. One eye was about three-quarters open, lifeless, and his navy blue knit cap was soaked with blood from a bullet wound to his temple. He also had a second wound. This one was to the side of his neck and looked as if it could have been made by a machete. emotional connection he fsep
Next to the man, resting on his right side, was a boy a little younger than Gabriel. He was hatless, and his light brown hair bristled at all angles like a well used paintbrush. His otherwise clean face was streaked dark red from his head wound, a hole the size of my little finger punched through his cheekbone. The impact of the bullet also caused his head, on that side, to be grossly misshapen. His knees were slightly drawn up and one of his hands was balled and curled at the wrist.
The third body was that of a woman, although I might not have known it but for the fact that her pants were around her ankles, pulled inside out, and her heavy wool plaid shirt was ripped open exposing her breasts. She had thick eyebrows and had apparently rubbed soot on her cheeks and under her nose to make it appear, from a distance anyway, as if she had beard stubble. Her death wound was through her left eye, and it showed as a black hole about the size of a quarter.
Seeing them like that, people who by all appearances were unarmed and offering no offense, just stoked my hate for their murderers, all the more.
When I got back to the man on his knees, Anna looked up at me again with that same expression. I continued to ignore her. Instead, I faced the man and asked him why they had killed those people. He didn’t answer my question. He only again pleaded with me to spare his life.
He was a pathetic looking creature, maybe in his late twenties with medium brown hair that looked like it had been hacked short with a pocket-knife because it hung down uneven like, all the way around. His right eyelid drooped, and the left corner of his mouth kind of hung open, giving his whole face a lopsided, jack-o-lantern look. He had on a pair of those half gloves with the fingers sticking out of them and a brown canvas coat with the elbows worn through and held together in the front with string instead of buttons.
I told him that I would let him live if he answered my questions. I saw Anna stir out of the corner of my eye. I asked him the question again, “Why did you kill those people?”
He said they were just following orders.
“Orders?” I said. “What do you mean orders?”
He said it was, “what we were spose to do.” They were sent to find a woman and a boy and kill them. He stopped, his eyes shifting back and forth between the three of us, perhaps realizing for the first time that Anna and Gabriel were probably the ones they were looking for.
“We’re you also supposed to rape the woman, you shit?” Anna asked as she kicked him near his hip. I slid sideways between the two of them before she could deliver another one. “We’re those your orders, too?” she continued from behind me. I could feel one of her hands pushing on my back. Of course these questions of hers really weren’t questions at all. They were more accusations.
He told her the rape wasn’t his idea. “I dint want nothin’ to do with it.” And he added emotional connection he fsep that he “don’t hold with stuff like that.”
I told him he was doing OK so far and asked him, “Whose orders were they?”
He hesitated a moment, looked over at his two dead companions and said, “A guy named Eric. He’s the one who gives the orders. He’s serious bad, he is.”
Anna swore out loud at that one.
I asked him to describe Eric for me, and when he said long red hair, I was sure it was Mr. Ponytail. He also said that Eric was a “mean son-of-a-bitch” who would “gut you clean with a rusty knife” if you crossed him. I suppose the last was added to hopefully explain why he had no choice but to go along with the murders.
“Why does Eric want these people dead?” I asked.
He told us, “Eric don’t give no reasons, he just says what to do and you does it. If you don’t, you dead, too.” But he added that he figured it had something to do with this “big deal” that was going to take place in two weeks. It was supposed to happen in about a month, but it had been moved up just about the same time the orders went out to find Gabriel and Anna.
So we only had two weeks now to get to wherever this Woburn was. That changed things considerably.
I asked him what the big deal was and he told us they were going to raid this town because it had food and guns and
women. Eric promised booze, drugs, and women to those who fought, but when he said the part about the women, you could hardly hear him.
I told him I had one more question for him, and if he answered it, he could go. His eyes searched my face to see if I was telling the truth. I asked him if Eric was the big boss, the one in charge of everyone. To this he said that he thought so because he “don’t know no other boss. There are capums but they not nothin’. They just follow hims orders, too.”
I told him he could go, as long as he promised he would deliver a message to Eric for us.
Anna interrupted at this point and said, “Don’t do this. Kill him. Letting him go is a big mistake. It could get us killed.”
I told her we weren’t going to kill him, that I needed him to deliver a message.
I looked the man in the eyes and told him to tell Eric that if we saw any of his people looking for us we would kill them outright, just like we did this time. I also told him there was no way they were going to find us, but if we had to, we’d find them. He nodded his head in understanding and asked if he could go. I didn’t answer him at first. Instead, I had him repeat the message. Once he did, I told him he could go.
I should mention that at this moment we were positioned so we were facing south and he was facing north. I’ll tell you why this is important in a say, “wot second.
The man stood up and looked down at his machete. I told him to leave it and that he should just worry about keeping his part of the bargain and deliver my message to Eric. We were keeping our part of the bargain by letting him go, so he needed to keep his.
He steepled his fingers as if he were praying, bowed at the waist, and thanked us. Keeping his eye on Anna, he moved around us and did this walk-run thing north. We turned and watched him go. When he was about twenty feet away, Anna started to raise her rifle, but I grabbed it by the barrel and shoved it down. That damn sure made her mad. So she two-handed pushed me with it, shouted “It’s my life, too,” and stomped off east toward the orchard. When the man was maybe a hundred feet away, he was still going north and well settled into a steady walk. He looked back at me once, and I waved him on and bent to pick up the bullet casings I had ejected from my rifle. But as soon as he turned his back to me again, I stood up and shot him in the spine.
Journal Page 11