by Nathan Combs
He raised his eyebrows.
She softly shook her head from side to side. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
He nodded curtly, went to the garage, and brought the horse through the living room, out the front door, and onto the porch.
After fastening the sling, he hitched the mare to the sled and Anna climbed aboard, facing the rear, her head against the jury-rigged backrest.
Working quickly, he placed a three-man tent and two sleeping bags on either side of Anna and put the food, the shotgun, and her pack to the rear of the sled. He checked the toboggan straps one last time, caressed the horse’s cheeks, slung his backpack and his M4 over his shoulder, pulled back his sleeve, and looked at his watch.
0755.
The horse struggled right out of the gate. The snow was too deep. Four miles and two hours from home, after crossing the Tellico Reliance Bridge, she stopped. Shaking and breathing hard, the mare stood belly deep in the snow as massive plumes of condensation spewed from her nostrils. Her eyes were wide and rolled in her head as though she knew it was the end of the line.
Noah looked at Anna, shook his head, unhooked the toboggan, moved it to the side, and drew his Glock.
Anna put her hand to her mouth and looked away.
Two gunshots echoed forlornly in the silence of the early morning.
Snow-laden boughs from nearby pines shed their burden. A lone ruffled grouse took flight.
Extracting his belt knife, Noah kneeled and quickly cut out the tenderloins, the liver, and large steaming rounds from the horse’s rump. With the meat wrapped in garbage bags and his hands cleaned, he loaded it onto the sled and stepped away from the bloody snow.
Noah’s concentration had been focused on finishing the mare before his hands froze and for the first time, he noticed that Anna had taken her snowshoes from the toboggan, put them on, and was already wearing her pack. He shook his head. “No way, Anna. No bag. Just concentrate on the baby. I’ll do the rest.”
She started to argue, but he cut her off, removed her pack, and placed it on the toboggan.
Moments later, with the sling around his waist and shoulders, he took a step, stumbled, righted himself, then took another.
The sled didn’t move easily, but it moved.
One hour and one mile later, Anna stopped without warning, stood still for a moment, swayed, cried, “Noah,” and then collapsed.
Noah’s heart leaped into his mouth when she crumpled into the snow. Throwing the harness off, he rushed to her side, sat, and pulled her onto his lap, cradling her head in his arm. After removing a glove, he touched her face.
She peered up at him and whispered, “I’m sorry, Noah. Nina was right. I don’t have the strength yet.”
He bent and kissed her gently. “Let’s get you on the sled.”
As an Army Ranger, Noah had always been in excellent shape and still carried his 195 pounds on a chiseled, compact frame. But this was different than running with a full pack. Anna’s weight wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it was close. At first, he struggled mightily, but once the sled was moving, he found a rhythm and it became manageable. But the effort ate his stamina. And in spite of the layers of high-tech clothing he wore, he was sweating like a hog. When he paused for a break, the sweat turned cold and clammy, causing him to shiver uncontrollably.
Six hours and an eternity later, with his leg and back muscles screaming in protest and heart beating at warp speed, they arrived at the Black Bear Cove Lodge south of Delano. Noah recalled from a previous visit that there was a wood stove in the office, and he prayed to God it still functioned. Leaving Anna sleeping on the sled, he opened the door and wobbled inside.
Like a treasure, the green, porcelain finished, cast-iron stove gleamed in the beam of his flash.
He looked up. Thank you.
After pulling the sled inside and checking the chimney for blockage, he broke up pieces of furniture, started a fire, set a pot of water to boil, cleared a spot for the sleeping bag pads, and zipped their bags together. When the water was hot, he added it to a packet of dehydrated chili mac, made a cup of green tea, and woke Anna up.
She groaned, and he helped her into the bedroll. He felt her forehead. Normal. Lifting her to a sitting position, he gently urged her to drink some water, then some tea, then spoon-fed her the chili mac.
When she finished eating, she woodenly changed the baby, then groggily began to nurse her.
“I have to get firewood, honey. I’ll be right back.” Leaning down, he kissed them both.
When he returned, Anna was snoring softly with Stormy snoozing at her breast. A soft pop filled his ears as he gently removed the baby from her nipple. He settled the baby in the crook of her arm and covered them both.
Overwhelmed with unconditional love, he stared at them for a minute, then stoked the stove, crawled into the bag, put his arm around his wife, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
At 0700 hours, Rogue and his three-man patrol rode out of Pahokee and headed south on the Okeechobee Scenic Trail. Emboldened by the distance between themselves and Horst, the men began bitching the moment they passed the city limit.
“This is stupid, Rogue. We shoulda gone straight to Okeechobee.”
Another echoed the comment. “Yeah, ridin’ all the way round the lake’s bullshit. No towns, but you kin bet yer ass there’s lottsa snakes.”
Rogue rolled his eyes. “You guys can bitch all you want. Boss said to go around the lake, we’re goin’ around the lake. When we get back, you can tell him he’s an idiot. How’s that?”
The thought of confronting Horst ended the conversation, and they continued in silence.
Five hours later, in the parking lot of a Dunkin’ Donuts, recognizable after a decade of neglect by the moss-covered broken sign, Rogue called a break. They dismounted, squatted in the shade of the building’s west side, and ate their rations. Because the day was unseasonably warm and their bellies were full, it wasn’t long before the collective snores and snorts of his men echoed off the cement block walls of the donut shop.
Rogue didn’t survive two tours in Iraq by being an idiot, so while they snoozed and snored, he sat with his back against the building, watching. Fighting the urge to close his eyes, he shook his head to stay awake. As he did, he thought he saw something move near the entrance of the Walmart across Sugarland highway.
What the hell?
Removing binoculars from his pack, he focused on the main entrance but saw nothing except sunlight reflecting off the doors. He watched for another three minutes. As he was ready to concede that the movement was his imagination, a man with flaming red hair appeared at the entrance carrying a large box, set it on the concrete, and went back in.
Holy shit! Jimmie Munson.
He quickly shook the men awake, told them what he’d seen, and they moved the horses out of sight to the rear of the building.
One of his men asked, “You sure it was Munson, Rogue?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. There’s no way there’re two guys left alive with hair that red. We worked together when we were with Nirvana at Fort Oglethorpe. You guys worked with him too. If he’s here, so is Nirvana.”
As they watched, Munson and three other men wearing cammies brought box after box out of the store and stacked them in a pile. An hour later, an M928 cargo truck and a Humvee pulled up. The men loaded the vehicle, stood yakking for a few minutes, then entered the trucks and headed west on US-27.
Rogue slowly shook his head. Speaking to no one in particular, he said, “That was definitely Munson. And the men with him are the Spec-Op guys. No doubt about it. They must’ve joined up.”
“What are we gonna do, Rogue?”
“Well, we’re damn sure not gonna follow ’em. We’ll double-time it back and tell Horst. He thought we had Florida all to ourselves. He’s not gonna like this.”
Chapter Four
Southern Comfort
The bitter cold in the Black Bear Cove Lodge woke Noah up. The stove was out and the temperature in the room hovered near zero. His watch said it was 0530. The thought crossed his mind that it had taken an entire day to go six miles.
He groaned, checked on Anna and Stormy, got up, stretched, and restarted the fire. A quick breakfast and a cup of instant coffee later, they were on the road.
Noah was confident and semi-rested, and while he thought it was probably his imagination, the sled seemed to pull easier now that they were southbound. For the next five hours, Anna slept while he trudged resolutely south on US-411.
Five miles from the Lodge, Mother Nature decided she wanted to dance. The north wind picked up. It was subtle at first, just a gentle northwesterly breeze. Occasional snow flurries spiraled from the lowering, leaden sky, but Noah knew what was coming and started looking for shelter. Ten minutes after the first lonely flurry touched down, they were in a raging blizzard. Fierce winds of thirty miles an hour gusting to forty-five blasted his back and right side. Walking was difficult, standing upright nearly impossible. Icicles from his running nose clung to the growth on his upper lip, and he brushed them off with the back of one gloved hand only to have a new clump take up residence seconds later.
He stopped, unhooked from the sled, knelt next to Anna, and lifted his goggles. The howling wind forced him to yell. “We have to stop, but we’re in a stretch with no buildings. Are you okay?”
Smiling, she yelled back, “Yes. We’re fine.” Then she giggled and shouted, “You have a three-inch snot sickle hanging from your chin.”
Even though it was no laughing matter, her flippant comment caused him to chuckle.
Minutes later, he wasn’t chuckling. Visibility was reduced to twenty-five feet and he struggled to see. He moved to where the shoulder of the roadway should be, and minutes later made out the ghostly outline of a house and headed toward it. As he got closer, a metal chimney materialized out of part of the roof that hadn’t collapsed from the weight of the endless snow. The front door was buried, but a side door was clear, and he pulled the sled inside.
The storm lasted two days and added another twenty inches to the existing ground cover.
The morning of the second day, Noah opened the front door and was greeted with a mini avalanche. He stood staring at a five-foot wall of snow, hesitated a moment, then clambered to the top of the snowpack, crawled out, and looked back. Two feet of cherry red door molding glistened boldly in the morning sun.
Without warning, a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed him. He hung his head, his body slumped, and he stood dejected in an immaculate world of white.
Moments later, he exhaled mightily. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get your wife and child to Florida.
He put his hand over his mouth, took a deep breath, and slid down the snowpack, into the room.
“It’s time to leave, Anna.”
She looked up from nursing the baby. “Okay. Let me finish. Stormy’s ravenous.”
He smiled. “I’ll move the sled and gear outside. I want to make ten miles a day. Maybe more.”
Anna’s face was gaunt, worn out, but her eyes were lively. “You can’t keep this pace up forever, Noah. I should walk.”
“I’m fine. I’ll go as long as I have to.”
“I feel so helpless.”
He kissed her forehead. “Don’t beat yourself up. You just had a baby.”
“Yes, but didn’t Indian women fall out of the queue, give birth, and get right back in line?”
He grinned. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. But you’re my squaw, and I don’t operate that way. Get used to it. Your chief has spoken.”
“That was cheesy as hell, Noah.”
Momentarily taken aback, he recovered quickly.
“Well, damn, Nina. I thought maybe I got lucky, and you went to Dubuque.”
“What’s a Dubuque?”
“A memory. Do you have anything helpful to add or just sarcasm?”
“You’re driving the bus, Noah. I’m just along for the ride.”
He rolled his eyes, pulled a map from his inside parka pocket, and pointed. “This is where we are. The storms are going to slow us down. They’ve been cycling through every two days, so if we average ten miles a day between storms and have to hole up for two, we’ll still be averaging five miles a day. Less than thirty days, and we should be snow-free.”
“You hope.”
He grinned. “That’s right. Now get your ass to the back of the bus.”
Five minutes before the start of the biweekly staff meeting, Wade’s wife Maggie, New Fort-T’s doctor, left the medical center and walked the short distance to the command center. Standing outside the front door, she waited for Wade to arrive. It was a spectacular Florida morning. The sunshine on her face felt good. She felt good.
Ten years of daily physical and mental trials and tribulations had added a few character lines to her fifty-year-old face and adorned her chestnut hair with streaks of gray. But the daily struggle to survive had also toned her five-foot, two-inch, 110-pound body. Her eyes were clear and bright. She was as beautiful as ever, and a wide grin creased her face as she watched Wade and Bill approach the command center complex via the well-worn footpath flanked by bougainvillea and honeysuckle bushes.
Wade was grinning back.
“Morning, honey. Hi, Bill.”
Bill grinned. “How’s everything in Maggie World?”
Before she could respond, Wade took her in his arms and kissed her gently. Nuzzling her neck, he said, “Give us a minute, Bill?”
Bill rolled his eyes and smirked. “Get a fuckin’ room.” He entered the command center and, still grinning, headed to the conference room he had dubbed The Powwow Room.
Decked out in southwestern décor, the Powwow Room was dominated by a solid maple conference table that seated twelve. The pièce de résistance was a hand-painted, solid plastic, life-sized Cherokee Indian, resplendent in a feathered war bonnet, guarding the south end of the table. Bill had named him Chief Full-of-Shit. A rusty machete was jammed into the Chief’s right hand and a genuine half-smoked stogie with a one-inch ash hung jauntily from his mouth.
During staff meetings, Bill always sat to the chief’s right and Tyler Little Soldier, who was half Sioux Indian, a former Federal Protective Services Officer, and one of the world’s premiere trackers, always sat across from Bill. At five-foot-seven and 150 pounds with long, flowing black hair, Tyler was the physical opposite of Bill, but their personalities were on the same reservation. They were closer than brothers and had been good-naturedly hassling each other since the day they’d met. Today was no exception.
Already seated at the table, Stuart Benjamin, New Fort-T’s executive officer; Wade’s sons, Randal and Chris; Chris’s wife Sara; and former Delta Force Master Sergeant Richard Cole all kicked back smiling and enjoyed the impromptu show as Bill took his seat.
“We can call the room whatever we want, Ty. Political correctness went the way of your tribe, so shut the fuck up.”
“Really? I think we should call it the BABE room.”
“Okay, Squaw Man, I’ll bite. What does BABE stand for?”
“Bill’s Asinine Big-ass Ego.”
“That’s it? That’s the best you can come up with? Blow me, Cochise.”
Wade and Maggie entered, and Bill and Tyler, imitating West Point cadets, shoved their chairs back, stood, and snapped to rigid attention.
With her hand over her mouth to hide her grin, Maggie took her seat.
Wade asked, “Do you guys rehearse this? Knock it off.”
Bill and Tyler snapped off impeccable military salutes and, with cheesy grins, sat down.
In spite of himself, a slight smile creased Wade’s face, and he shook his head in mock disgust as he sat,
but before he could bring the meeting to order, Bill locked eyes with Tyler and muttered, “Kiss my ass, Geronimo.”
“I love it when you open your mouth like that, fat boy. It excites me.”
Exasperated, Wade looked from one to the other and asked, “Are you two through?”
Everyone snickered.
Bill and Tyler smirked.
Sitting down at the north end of the table, Wade exhaled mightily and muttered something under his breath. Then he nodded at the five men, his wife, and his daughter-in-law, and said, “Assuming the adolescents are finished, Stuart, what’s the new gator problem?”
Stuart stood and walked to the map of Moore Haven on the west wall. He was approaching fifty-five and blamed Bill and Tyler for the gray in his hair and his weight loss from 200 to 175 pounds. Still wearing the slight grin caused by Bill and Tyler’s juvenile antics, he said, “Two young boys were going to surprise their mom and dad by catching some fish in the pond off Pinehurst last evening.” He tapped the image of the pond with his forefinger. “They were lucky. A gator ate their dog and only scared the crap out of them. I dispatched a team, and they got him. Biggest damn gator imaginable. Sixteen feet long and about 1,000 pounds. He’s on the menu for tomorrow.”
Stuart returned to his seat but stood behind it. “I’m not positive, but it appears the alligator mating season is starting earlier than normal because the bulls are getting aggressive. With that in mind and for lack of a better term, effective immediately, we’re instituting a gator protocol. No one is allowed to go near water alone. And fishing teams will have a lookout on the boat or bank, as the case may be.” He poured a glass of water from the pitcher in front of him. “I have men searching the spaces gators frequent, and they’ll get most of them, but as I said, the mating season is apparently starting and they’ll be traveling from place to place, so an area that’s gator free today might not be tomorrow.”
Wade said, “Good. Glad the kids are okay. What about the pythons?”
“Yeah. The pythons are a real problem. We’ve killed several that were over twenty feet long. We’re working on methods to keep them out, but that’s not going to be easy.” He shrugged. “For now, we’re utilizing the gator safeguards for the snakes too, but since they don’t just hang around water, they’re definitely more problematic than the gators. For the time being, I’m posting extra guards for the field workers.” He paused and smirked at Bill. “I know this is hard to believe, but there are actually SEALs who are petrified of snakes.”