6 Miles With Courage

by LaCorte, Thomas

  Ryan approached Jebediah from behind. The giant of a man didn’t seem so big anymore—down on his knees crying in the dirt. The red hand being raised high with fingers curled in agony pricked Ryan’s heart as it never had been pricked before. Ryan gently placed his hand on Jebediah’s shoulder.

  The cruel hand of fate had struck the Sykes brothers but it wasn’t over yet. Things were about to get worse… much worse.

  Chapter Twenty One

  Then the bear cub began to bleat like a goat. Bah! Bah! The cub sounded-off while it paced back and forth along the creek bed. It kept looking towards Ryan and the men. Ryan knew then that they were indeed between the cub and its mother. Ryan looked downstream to where the creek made a sharp bend to the right some fifty yards away. The dark sky from the approaching rain made it hard to see. Ryan squinted but there was nothing to be seen.

  “The keys man, give us the keys,” said one of the chained men to Ryan with an outstretched hand, pointing and shaking his index finger towards a ring of keys on Jebediah’s belt. Jebediah picked up his brother and holding him close to his breast sobbed deeply.

  “O-be James, O-be James, O-be James,” he said through his sobs, it was the name their father would call out when he demanded Obadiah’s attention. But there would be no getting Obadiah’s attention—he was dead!

  “I said give us the keys man! Before that sow turns the corner!

  Ryan, reaching down, unclipped the key ring from Jebediah’s belt unnoticed and handed the keys to the first man chained next to Obadiah’s body. One by one they unlocked themselves and the three of them ran off splashing down the creek directly towards the cub. It was the safest place to run; away from the mother should she approach. The cub moved aside and let the men pass. They disappeared around a bend, mumbling something about Jebediah murdering his brother as they ran.

  Jebediah paid them no mind as they were leaving. He continued sobbing as he holds his brother’s body close. Ryan could not help but notice how truly sorry he was. It reminded Ryan of what his father would say to him and his brother when they were playing rough, “It’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.”

  Bah! Bah! The cub started in again. Then suddenly it stopped with its head raised high and it was looking right at Ryan, or was it looking past him? Ryan turned to see a ghastly sight.

  Standing silently in the middle of the creek, at the darkness of the bend stood the Sow. Ryan was not directly in its line of site as he and Jebediah were nearer the south bank. Ryan slowly lowered to a squat next to the sobbing Jebediah who even up till now had no idea that Ryan was next to him, comforting him.

  “Jebediah,” Ryan whispered, “Jebediah we have to step away from the creek.” Ryan had to shake him to get him to look at him. “Jebediah!” listen to me!

  Jebediah looked at Ryan with the eyes of a man who had no soul. His blackened face was washed clean around the eyes from his tears. He was breathing heavy through his clenched teeth. Snot ran down his beard. It was truly a face of anguish. He was looking right through Ryan and Ryan knew it.

  Splash! Splash! Then a loud snort as the four hundred pound sow began sniffing the air for what had alarmed her cub. Jebediah heard the snort and the splash, and it changed his demeanor. His eyes went to looking crazy-like and his face put on a weird grin. Ryan didn’t know what to expect!

  Jebediah slowly arose to his feet and began walking backwards into the creek! His face never changed its crazy expression as he continued to look towards Ryan.

  “Jebediah get back here!” Ryan whispered, but it was too late the sow caught sight of him and stood straight up on her hind legs, the top of her head reaching seven feet into the air.

  Jebediah backed up into the middle of the creek and reaching into his waistband pulled out a long bayonet. And without ever taking his eyes off of Ryan pointed the bayonet at the sow and said, “That Sow killed my brother!”

  “No-no Jebediah you listen to me! You need to come back here NOW! I need to get to the hard-road! I need your help! That Sow did not kill your brother! It had to have been an accident!” Ryan whispered loudly.

  “No! That Sow killed my brother! Didn’t you hear me boy!”

  And with that Jebediah turned to face the standing bear.

  Ryan glanced down looking for something to defend himself with. He saw a bayonet in Obadiah’s waistband and pulling it out, slid a little farther into the trees of the creek bank. He took cover behind the tree that had the shackles. He no sooner ducked when he heard the sow coming down the creek.

  “My God,” Ryan said with a whisper as he peeked out. The Sow was charging down the creek like a truck driving down a flooded street. Water was spraying-out from both sides with every gallop. She was blowing and snorting as the water danced off of her thick fur. Jebediah had but five seconds.

  He readied himself in a low stance with an out stretched bayonet. The bear came to a sudden stop at Jebediah’s feet and pounded both her paws into the creek like she would have done if it were dry ground.

  This splash had caught him off guard but he wiped the water away from his face quickly, and watched as the bear rose up to a towering height just a mere three feet away. She let out a deafening roar as her face rippled across her jaws, momentarily exposing all of her teeth in a ghastly grimace. This would have scared a lesser man but it only made Jebediah mad, ticked him off actually.

  He lunged forward, and with a stabbing motion managed to get to her chest three times before she knew what hit her. But with her wet fur, thick skin and layers of fat, it amounted to nothing more than a couple of pokes to the ribs making her all the angrier.

  Rising up and walking forward she paid no mind to the poking. She reached out with a huge paw with hooked claws and swatted the bayonet out of Jebediah’s hand, breaking his arm at the elbow.

  Jebediah was frantically reaching down into the creek in search of the bayonet with his good arm as his wounded arm dangled grotesquely.

  Then the bear pounced with both paws crumpling Jebediah like a paper cup into the creek where the water cutoff his voice in mid-cry—the battle cry of a soldier.

  Then there came an upwelling of bubbles and blood not unlike a boiling caldron. The bear stood there holding him down. She knew what she was doing, she was drowning him and not until his hat floated to the surface did she step off. Then she walked down the middle of the creek to her cub where they licked each other in a show of affection.

  Jebediah’s body did not surface. Like the submerged log that started this whole mess it drifted away unseen. Ryan was once again alone with nothing but his courage to carry him forward.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  When the Sow reached her cub Ryan collapsed at the base of the tree in a heap, taking in huge gulps of air he began breathing again. In an effort to remain silent he had held his breath. Now with his back against the tree and looking up at the spinning canopy he began to hyperventilate, and he grew dizzy, and he began hallucinating.

  One treetop looked like the bear and another looked like Jebediah, and they were chasing each other as they spun around and around. Only when his breathing returned to normal did the dizziness and hallucination stop. Then he broke out in uncontrollable weeping.

  He cried for Jebediah and he cried for Obadiah. He cried for his father and for the predicament that his father was in. He cried for the violence that he had just witnessed, for he had never seen such gore, except in a movie. He never cried for himself however, and when he realized this, when he realized that he was not crying for Ryan, well that’s when he stopped.

  Ryan had a good and well deserved cry, but now he knew it was time to get moving again as time so precious to his father’s rescue was now slipping away.

  Wiping his eyes he stood up, and after briefly looking the bayonet over he slid it into his waistband. Taking the compass out of his pocket reminded him of the raft and the other supplies like the machete, GPS unit, water and snacks. He looked back over his shoulder and then quickly shrugged off any idea
about going back for them. It was just too risky and the only thing he really needed was the compass. He held the compass up and took to a bearing of S20°W. With only one half mile to go until he reached the uplands, he took his first steps to finishing the journey through the swamp.

  “Ah, the uplands,” Ryan said. He was thinking how nice it was going to be once he left the dismal swamp. But sometimes things are not exactly as we foresee them as was the case with Ryan. The swamp grew more dismal as the canopy was filtering-out the fading light from the approaching storm. Like Bob Mallory, Ryan was in for a long drizzly day.

  As Ryan began to move through the swamp there was a noticeable difference, an uplifting and encouraging difference. Gone were the awkward movements of an adolescent stumbling through the swamp. Instead they were replaced by the skillful movements of a young man who knew what it took to walk through a swamp. He quickly put into practice what he had learned while riding over Jebediah’s shoulder.

  He stepped from fern-tuft to fern-tuft thereby staying out of the deep water. He stepped so silently that the great horned owl sleeping above never woke up! He dodged the spider webs. He ate berries and drank the moisture gathered into small puddles on the leaves of the swamp plants. He navigated around the “hat floaters” and even cautiously shooed away poisonous water moccasins with the bayonet as they lay atop the fern tufts.

  He heard the woodpecker as it hammered on a hollow tree in the distance but he was not to be fooled again. He tucked his pants into his socks as did Jebediah, thus keeping out the leaches. He stayed focused, he was methodical, and he was making good time.

  In fact it seemed that the only thing wrong with his new found skills is that he found them late in the game. He sure could have used them in the first two and a half miles of the swamp. Now with just a half a mile of swamp left, and moving at this rate, he should reach the uplands in forty-five minutes tops.

  Twenty minutes into the journey Ryan came to a small tributary to Bear Creek. It was a muddy little stream no wider than four feet. But before he could step across an odd site on the far side caught Ryan’s attention and he froze.

  The bloated carcass of a deer lies at the water’s edge with its four legs up in the air. Its head (if it had one) would have been under the water. Lying next to the fawn perpendicular to the stream bank was an alligator no less than ten feet in length! The scene looked surreal and out of place, almost fake or staged.

  Here Ryan was, far from any large body of water and right in front of him no more than eight feet away was this large alligator and what was left of its breakfast. Not really sure what puzzled him more—the deer or the alligator—he looked them both over before deciding which way to move.

  There was definitely a sign of a struggle as the vegetation was disturbed around the deer. The alligators hide was dried out from being out of the water revealing many battle scars, and the general appearance was that of a pasty color, a cross between sun-dried leather and concrete was its texture. It looked down-right fake and this was compounded by the fact that it was motionless. One could get lulled into a feeling of false security if not careful.

  The huge creature had big fat jowls hanging off each side of its neck. This gave the appearance that it was well fed. It had tiny beady little eyes close together high atop its head and much to Ryan’s relief they were closed.

  Even Ryan knew that you cannot outrun an alligator. After coming to the conclusion that the creature had recently had a meal and was sleeping. He stepped slowly backwards.

  Ryan skirted the alligator by fifty-feet before crossing the muddy little stream to get back on course. Chills ran up his spine and he shuddered at the thought of being eaten by the alligator. He picked up the pace sensing the end of the swamp. The water was getting shallow and there was an earthen scent to the air. It was a scent he had not experienced since the crash. He was on cruise-control and moving effortlessly, but his mind could not shed the thought of the alligator and the fate of the deer. His thoughts drifted.

  The deer was like Ryan, a humble soul venturing into the swamp from the uplands. He pauses to take a drink of cool water from the first little stream he finds. The deer lowers his head and begins to eagerly lap unaware of the danger just inches away. The alligator has chosen his position well. He has grown to an enormous length and weight over the years as the “gatekeeper” to the swamp. Like a giant concrete figure coming to life the alligator merely turns his head and with its long rows of sharp teeth, snaps off the head of his latest victim. With a bloody grimace he swallows it and returns to his sleep.

  Many hours pass, the deer bloats, his legs stick up into the air and then along comes Ryan, stumbling upon the scene. If his timing was off he would have joined the growing pile of bones belonging to the gatekeeper’s victims.

  WHOOSH! The red-tailed hawk banking through the trees had just missed Ryan’s head, and it startled him, breaking him of his gruesome thoughts. Looking up he had come to the end. The end of the swamp!

  Three of the four miles that it would take to reach Forest Road 77 were behind him. You would think that this would call for some kind of a light hearted celebration, like a cheer or a “Yahoo” or something of that nature.

  Ryan stood staring with his mouth agape! For what lies in front of him was not an open vista of pine trees and sprawling palmetto as one would expect upon reaching the uplands. No, what lay in front of Ryan was a dead-end!

  Chapter Twenty Three

  It had all the appearance of a dead-end. A massive vine covered earthen wall that ascended upward like steps leading to an ancient Mayan temple.

  Ryan approached it cautiously more out of disbelief than fear.

  “What the heck?” he said.

  As far as he could see to the right and left was this earthen damn rising up out of the swamp, draped in vines. He took out his compass to verify the direction he had to travel and sure enough it was straight ahead.

  He quickly marched along the toe of the berm to the left for several hundred feet looking for a passage but it was not to be. He repeated this to the right with the same result and upon returning to where he first encountered the obstacle he sat down on a log to assess the situation.

  What Ryan encountered was normal for a river basin but it was something his father had not prepared him for. What’s in front of him is known as the “transitional” lands.

  Like any basin or bowl for that matter there is a bottom and a top. If you were to put two fingers in your cereal bowl (like a man standing) and then walk the little man to the top of the bowl you would have to go up the side to get to the top.

  The bottom of the bowl is the swamp, the side of the bowl is the transitional land and the top of the bowl is the upland. It’s that simple, and just like the bowl, that’s how it is in nature. Sometimes the transitional lands are long and flat and sometimes they are short and steep, but always there is a transition to higher ground.

  This transition was six hundred feet long and one hundred feet high. It did not rise on a straight incline but rather it was terraced into three steps, each terrace having a length of two hundred feet. The terraces were each separated by berms of fallen trees and soil twenty-feet in height. Ryan knows nothing of the length or height of the transitional lands. All that he could see was the first wall of soil behind a curtain of vines.

  The transitional lands have an eco-system all their own. It is a tortured landscape frequently flooded on the lower terraces, and subject to severe storm water run-off in the upper regions. It is home to unforgiving vegetation such as cat-claw and tie-tie vines, as well as brier bushes. This is vegetation that can rip the meat off of your bones if you’re not careful. These and other types of vegetation try to form a barrier against the elements, struggling to hold the soil together in an erosive environment.

  Wildlife from both above and below like to call this area home as the cascading landscape makes for many-a-place to borrow a den in the eroding soil, in and around the many fallen trees. Strangers are seldom seen
here making it an ideal place for the creatures of the swamp and of the uplands to harbor their young, all the more reason why Ryan is not welcome here.

  But welcome or not, it is a place that Ryan must cross if he is to get the attention of the forest ranger. It will prove to be the greatest test of his courage yet.

  Ryan stood up from the log and surged forward into the curtain of vines. He parted them with the bayonet and turning sideways he attempted to step through. But the thorns of the cat-claw vine sunk deep into his flesh.

  “Ah!” Ryan screamed in agony.

  He had not encountered thorny bushes or vines since leaving the wreckage. He spun around in an attempt to free himself and in doing so broke the thorns off the vine leaving them embedded in his arms and shoulders. He sat down against the berm and immediately began pulling out the hooked thorns one-by-one. The thorns are exactly like a cat’s claw. They are thin, translucent and curved. They have a tendency to break off the vine easily.

  Ryan pulled the thorns out. Blood trickled down his arms. With only a few steps back to the swamp he splashed some cool water on his wounds. It stung. A few washings and the bleeding began to slow. He stepped back through the curtain of vines very cautiously this time.

  He stood at the foot of the embankment. He figured out that by leaning forward, he could take hold of the many small trees and work his way up. It was twenty-feet high but it was by no-means a vertical climb. There were a lot of small holes burrowed into the soil. Most were at the base of the trees growing out of the earthen wall. Using the trees for his hands and the holes for his feet Ryan began his ascent.

  It was a lot like climbing the rock wall at the shopping mall when he was just a boy. Grab something and put your foot here, grab something else put your foot there. It took some thinking but you didn’t have to go straight up. He moved a little left and then up. He moved a little right and then up again and before long he was past the halfway point of the first mound.