by Raylan Kane
The older woman nodded slightly and murmured. Marsh watched her for a few seconds and then saw that she'd opened her eyes.
“Lindsay, we have to go.”
“I know.”
“I'm sorry, we can't lay around here. I know you're in a lot of pain.”
“It's okay. We got any water left?”
“A little. Here.”
Lindsay swallowed another pain pill with a sip of water from the nearly empty canteen. “So what's the plan?” She said, her voice weary, hair matted to the side of her face.
“We're going to push up onto that ridge, where those shots were coming from.”
“You don't think there'll be more people?”
“We're still alive aren't we? If there were other shooters, they'd have kept shooting.”
“Good point.”
“I'm going to find you a long branch. Something to help you walk. In the meantime, you want a granola bar?”
Marsh left Lindsay sitting up in her sleeping bag munching on a few snacks while she combed the nearby woods for a stick long and sturdy enough to support the woman's weight. The longer the search took, the more frustrated Marsh became, worried that it made them vulnerable to attack by the giant bears who might lock in on their whereabouts again by scent. Plus she couldn't help the sinking feelings that kept invading her mind. The idea that the forest was endless, because on foot it took so long to navigate anywhere. The land just seemed to stretch on forever. It didn't help that the wolves had diverted them from the Ryback River. At least along the Ryback you could feel yourself making progress as you could somehow gain a measure of how far you'd walked knowing you weren't just hiking in circles, which was the effect trekking through nothing but dense forest had. The sense that maybe you'd already tread over this ground, already passed this tree.
Stop thinking about it, Marsh told herself. You're not doing yourself any favors. She knew if she concentrated on the idea of becoming hopelessly lost in the Alaskan wilderness, she could wind up in a panic and then she and Lindsay both would be in a lot of trouble. She'd heard the stories of people who'd completely lost their bearings when they strayed too far into the bush, and they subsequently lost their minds as well. Don't dwell on this, she thought. Find the branch, get back to Lindsay, then back to the Ryback – if you can.
Sure enough, a few minutes after she'd managed to calm herself down, Marsh found a thick branch laying in a boggy patch of moss. A lot of the tree bark had been stripped from the thing giving it more of a pale gray coloring. Marsh worried it might be rotten inside or hollowed out, meaning it wouldn't hold Lindsay's weight for any length of time. Please be sturdy. And it was. She lifted the branch and noticed right away it had more heft to it than it had appeared it might. One end of the branch was noticeably wider and she surmised that had been the part which snapped off the trunk of a tree. The other end was narrower, but not so narrow that with some weight applied it would simply snap. Perfect, Marsh thought.
Back at the campsite, Lindsay had already made her way out of the tent. She'd already pulled out the sleeping bags and supplies and stowed them. And as Marsh walked up, the ten-person tent was already half-way pulled down. She smiled as she could see Lindsay standing.
“Didn't expect to see you up and around like that.”
“I'm not feeling a lot of pain at the moment,” Lindsay said, “I probably shouldn't have too many more T3's by the way. I've had a lot. That my stick?”
Marsh held up the long branch. “You like it?”
“Took a while to find, hey?”
“Longer than I'd thought, yes.”
“Well, we should get moving.”
Even through the pleasant tone the two took with each other, Marsh knew they were both deluding themselves in a way. She knew it was some form of coping, a way of blocking out the fact that the bodies of two people they knew were laying not that far off, rotting under the Alaskan sun. But, they had to carry on as though they were two people on a hike through the wilderness. Each of them in their own way recognized that to survive meant denying certain aspects of the real, no matter how apparent a given reality might be.
Making their way up to the ridge took a little under an hour, and Lindsay made good use of the branch. Before they'd departed the campsite, she hacked off a small bit of the thing and she wrapped some cloth around the end planted in her armpit. Marsh was impressed by Lindsay's strength, having already noted earlier in the trip the woman's strength of spirit and character, never mind her ability to move through the woods efficiently and with minimal complaints. If only she hadn't been shot in the foot, Marsh thought. Maybe we'd have hiked out of here already. We need to get back to that river.
“Is the Ryback up this way?” Lindsay said.
“I think if we keep moving in this direction it'll work, yes.”
“Hey, look at that.”
Both of them stopped for a moment as they neared the spot where one of the shooters had nested. They could see a man slumped in the brush. It appeared he was decked out in green fatigues. As they walked closer they could see military issued tactical gear.
“His weapon,” Lindsay noted. “That's military.”
“Yeah. Strange.”
“He's young. This isn't some hobbyist out hunting.”
“Well,” Marsh said, “he was hunting alright. Just not for wild animals.”
“It doesn't make any sense.”
Fifteen minutes later, they happened upon the other dead shooter. Another young man in military gear. They went through his supplies, still shocked to find them marked with U.S. Army signifiers.
“Why would the Army have two soldiers out here?”
“More than that, why would they have them shooting at us?”
“Great question.”
Lindsay went to take another step and she stopped suddenly, and grit her teeth, sucking in a big gasp. She hobbled toward a large rock and had a seat.
“What's wrong?”
“My foot,” she said, “all of a sudden that toe's flared up.” She rubbed her shin, as though that might bring some relief. “I don't know if finding these guys helped me block out some of the pain, but yeah, it's really come on in the last couple of minutes. It's really throbbing.”
“Anything I can do?”
Lindsay frowned and she began to rock her upper body back and forth, trying to will herself through the pain. “No,” she said. “I'm sorry, I just need a few minutes.”
“Take your time.”
That's when the roar of collapsed trees and multiple landslides exploded from behind them, higher up the ridge where the Army shooters positioned themselves. Two hulking shadows at the top of the hill. Grizzly bears each fifty feet at their shoulders, stood on all fours, their eyes over the tree tops, but they could see the two tiny people down the ridge before them. One of the bears let out an ungodly wail, that pierced Lindsay's ears. For Marsh, though loud, it was as fuzzy as everything else.
“Lay down!” Marsh shouted.
“What good would it do?”
The deputy scrambled to find one of the rifles.
“Use theirs,” Lindsay said, pointing to the dead soldier in front of them.
Marsh gripped the assault rifle and pulled it free of the dead man's grip. She locked in a cartridge laying nearby.
“Wait,” Lindsay said, before Marsh could run away to deal with the animals. “That weapon, it's got the ability to...I mean, it also shoots...if you load it with-”
Marsh wasn't listening to Lindsay, instead she was concentrating on the massive bears that appeared ready to pounce on them from atop the hill. “Stay here!” The deputy yelled, and then she ducked off into heavy brush.
28
One of the grizzlies took a step down from the hilltop. Marsh did not hesitate and pulled the trigger on her weapon, surprised by the smoothness of the shots without as much kick as the weapon she'd used the day before. She plugged three bullets into the animals arm, and it cried and leaned its weight back on its hind end, trying to
get the measure of this tiny creature.
It's going to come back on all fours. Marsh was estimating the bear's next move so as not to be crushed under its giant paws were she to run into the wrong area. Hit it again, she thought. She didn't wait for the grizzly to plant it's front feet again. She pulled the trigger again and again and could see small spurts of blood emerge from its chest. Marsh pulled the rifle up and had the bear's face in her scope. Most of the animal was exposed above the trees, making it an easy target. She imagined each of the shots probably felt like a bee sting to it, but she kept firing anyway, in a bid to drive it back, convince it not to bother with them.
The other bear had retreated slightly, perhaps not understanding that it could end this tiny animal with the exploding stick quite easily.
Marsh plugged shot after shot into the bear directly in front of her. Then she ran to her right, trying to make herself hard for the bear to pin down. Knock it off guard with firepower, she thought, then move quick while it's disoriented.
But then the bear had had enough. When Marsh plugged two rounds into its face, the bear sneered and smashed the forest floor with one of its paws so hard that the resulting tremor almost knocked the deputy off her feet. A spray of splintered tree trunks and grass and dirt almost twenty feet high rained down all around Marsh. She turned to run down the hill to put a bit more distance between her and the enormous grizzly, but she hooked the front of her left foot in a root and toppled over.
The grizzly bounded forward and she narrowly missed being crushed by it. She could reach out and touch the animal's fur if she'd wanted, the thing was hovering directly over her. The assault rifle laid on top of her. Before the bear could lean down and grasp her in its jaws she grabbed the gun and her hands fumbled as they shook with bits of the grizzly's blood dropping onto her and around her, and she tried to feel for the trigger while looking into the beast's dark, soulless eyes. Without even realizing, she'd worked her hand more forward than normal on the weapon and her finger was on a different trigger than she'd worked before. When the monster leaned forward, it's humongous teeth exposed, Marsh pulled the trigger and the weapon made a different kind of noise and a fireball erupted in the great bear's maw. The heat from the orange flame was immense and Marsh brought her arms up over her face to try and shield herself from the fire. What the hell was that? Was the first thought that raced through her mind. Do it again. Marsh drew her finger back and again, another explosion, this one right in the grizzly's eyeball. A wave of heat was accompanied by clear and pinkish tissue falling like heavy slop all around her. Again! Another fireball and this time the animal stumbled backward. It had lost sight in one eye and Marsh had blown off large chunks around its muzzle. Die, you son of a bitch!
The bear was in absolute agony and it rolled to its left, flattening more forest and crying loudly. The other grizzly leaped forward into the huge clearing made by the other bear and as soon as it did so, Marsh was back up on her feet and she hurled two more grenades in that bear's direction. As soon as the fiery explosions hit, the other bear retreated. Marsh then turned and reverted back to firing bullets. She kept firing, again and again. One round after another landing center mass on the giant creature still reeling from its grave facial wounds. After absorbing ten more bullets, the bear clumsily found its footing and ran back over the ridge, causing a mini-earthquake with every step. Marsh stood shaking, incredulous that she'd actually managed to cause both animals to retreat. She stood for a minute, trying to listen through broken eardrums, waiting for an indication that maybe she and Lindsay were safe once again.
After a few minutes, she felt secure enough to make her way back down the ridge. “Lindsay?” She called out, wondering if perhaps the other woman had been calling out to her and she'd just been unable to hear it. “Lindsay, you there?”
“I'm here.”
Marsh found her laying near the dead soldier. She knelt down to her. “How are you doing?”
“It hurts a lot.”
The deputy could see Lindsay was really having a hard time, so much so that even her attempts at putting on a brave face were for naught.
“Quite the weapon, hey?”
“You're telling me.”
Lindsay grimaced through the aching wound, trying to tell herself that if she talked about something else it would take away her pain. “I tried to say to you-”
“That is fired grenades?” Marsh finished the thought for her. “Yeah, I found that out.”
“A handy thing.”
“You can say that again.”
“Should we keep going?”
“I think that would be wise, yes.”
“Even over that ridge?”
“I think the bears are long gone, and yep, that's the way back to the river. Can you stand?”
“Do I have a choice?” Lindsay smiled slightly, and her ability to find some levity relaxed Marsh a little.
“No, I guess not.”
“Alright then, let's go.”
29
Walking through the deep woods took longer than it had before. After forty-five minutes they'd climbed over the ridge and made it half-way down the other side. Marsh was confident they were going to make it to the Ryback in another hour, and that's when the increasing cloud cover overhead gave way to some truly dark skies and then the rains came, hard and heavy.
For twenty minutes, Lindsay and Marsh trudged through mud and tiny streams and puddles that had formed on the forest floor. At first Marsh was angry about the weather, but then she just gave up on the feeling and she and Lindsay shared a look as they both knew continuing on while sheets of water slapped them over and over was useless. Both women could feel that they were making little progress as more and more mud stuck to their boots and Lindsay's progress clutching the long branch had pretty much slowed to a crawl.
“There's a clearing up there,” Marsh said, having to raise her voice to be heard over the downpour and the swirling winds.
“I see it, yes.”
“Not ideal to do in this weather, but we'll set the tent up there.”
“Okay,” Lindsay said, “I don't how much help I can be.”
“Don't worry about it.”
“I've really got to get off of this foot.”
“Let's do that.”
“You think we're anywhere close to the river?”
Marsh looked all around them, and she squinted as rain pelted her from all sides, stinging her eyes and cheeks. “I don't know. All I see is trees.”
They walked to the clearing, that was no more than twenty five feet across in any direction. Almost a perfect ring in the middle of the spruce trees. Lindsay's clothing was soaked through, to the point she no longer cared about being wet and she laid down on a patch of grass with her face pointed down toward the ground while Marsh struggled with the tent.
Lindsay did everything she could to try and push away the pain, she concentrated on the black dirt directly in front of her and examined each individual pebble she could see, trying to imagine them as planets in a solar system, each with ecosystems and civilizations all their own. But that ache, that incessant throbbing, it would not leave. Isn't that tent set up yet? She thought. How long have I been laying here?
Marsh for her part cursed the clouds and cursed the rain as it drenched everything around her. She swore under her breath as the steady winds played havoc with her attempts at erecting even one corner of the tent. She felt like an explorer in a new world contending with brutally foreign conditions who stubbornly refused to allow them to stop her from gaining a foothold. She told herself setting up this tent was their beachhead, and she was going to win this fight, no matter how much Mother Nature seemed determined to stop her. Slowly and methodically Marsh battled the elements and little by little the ten-person tent took shape. She glanced across the clearing towards Lindsay and could see that she was laying still, probably doing her best to will away the pain emanating from her foot. I'm almost there, Marsh thought. Just hang on, Lindsay.
&n
bsp; “Okay,” Marsh said, “we're good to go.” She practically had to shout to be heard. “Let me give you a hand.”
Marsh walked over to Lindsay and helped her up. She wrapped Lindsay's arm around her and they hobbled over to the zipper flap and Marsh tried as gently as she could to lower the older woman inside.
Inside the tent, they both had the idea to move over to the opposite end of the tent from where Marsh had placed their sleeping bags, and they stripped off their wet clothing and laid it out as flat as they could.
“Are the sleeping bags wet?”
“They're not too bad inside,” Marsh said, her teeth beginning to chatter from being cold. “Hard to tell really, everything's so damp.”
The two of them were naked, except for Lindsay's lower legs. She was afraid to pull off her pants, as that meant removing her boot and sock from her injured foot. She wasn't sure she wanted to see the state of the wound.
“Aren't we a pair?” Marsh said. “We should probably get warm. I would say we take off your boots finally. What do you say?”
“Not looking forward to it.”
“I'll help you.”
Lindsay sat on her backside and Marsh pulled off one of her pant legs that had stuck to her leg. Then she delicately untied Lindsay's boot that still had strands of cloth clinging to it where they had wrapped it to try and keep the wound dressed.
“You know as soon as you pull that boot, that cloth is probably stuck to the wound,” Lindsay said. “Gonna hurt like hell to pry it away.”
“I know,” Marsh said. “Have to do it though. We should maybe see what we're dealing with.”
“I hate to say it, but you're right.”
“Okay,” Marsh said, “nice and easy.”
She held the boot heel firmly in the palm of one hand while she pulled gently with the other. Lindsay bit down with her teeth together, inhaling.
“This is going to hurt a lot,” Marsh said. “I don't think there's anyway around it.”
“Maybe faster's better,” Lindsay said. “Just do it.”
Marsh nodded and she pulled harder than before. Lindsay let out a forceful holler and Marsh pulled hard and the boot came free and the bloody bits of cloth mostly came with it.