The Dying Time (Book 2): After The Dying Time

by Raymond Dean White

  Anger and pain had fueled him for the past several days. He was no longer certain how many had passed since his own stupidity and carelessness had gotten him into this mess. He shook his head in disgust. Water under the bridge. What he needed now wasn’t more self-criticism, or more self-pity. He’d already wasted more than enough time on those. He needed a plan of action.

  The key was mobility. If he could move he could get food, water and help. But to get mobile he had to set and re-splint his leg and so far he’d passed out from pain every time he’d tried, coming to just in time to keep the dogs from finishing him off.

  He was weaker now, so before he tried again he needed to regain some strength. He could get strength from food, of which he had none, or from adrenaline, of which he had almost none left, having used it up staying awake, slowly feeding the fire, keeping the dogs at bay.

  He gazed out into the night. Stygian darkness, broken only by the reddish glow of patiently waiting eyes. Still there.

  Anger smoldered within him, battling fatigue. His mind searched for a solution, any solution. No! He got a grip on himself. Not just any solution. He’d tried a number of fever-inspired, half-baked ideas in days past and none of them worked. It was do or die time. He needed the solution.

  A thought came to him and he latched on to it, following it to its conclusion. Oh yeah. A plan born of desperation etched a slightly twisted grin across his face. He adjusted the lashings on his make-shift splint, grasped his bowie knife in one hand, his homemade fire-hardened spear in the other and settled down to wait.

  He had to let the fire die out--pretend to be asleep or unconscious.

  “Good doggy,” his hoarse whisper scratched the night. If Muhammad couldn’t go to the mountain...

  Michael had been scouting for new, fast, unknown-to-the-King’s-army approaches to Provo when his personal plans went slightly awry. The weather had been closing in all afternoon as he climbed the pass, the temperature dropping rapidly, the wet spring snow getting so heavy it was hard to see more than ten feet.

  The wind was swirling unpredictably so his horse didn’t scent them. Feeling chilled, he had just wrapped himself in a large buffalo robe to keep warm, grousing to himself about why he had to be out in this damn cold instead of home in front of a nice fire, for a moment forgetting what a dangerous world he lived in.

  His horse was following a game trail that wound through blown down trees, stepping gingerly and had just skirted a large boulder when a tremendous blow knocked Michael from his horse’s back and all hell broke loose. He hit hard--a rolling tangled mass of buffalo robe, man and dogs. His horse screamed and as he thrashed clear of the heavy robe that had saved his life, he saw his horse pulled down by several large dogs. Dogs appeared from everywhere, leaping, whirling, slashing at him. He emptied his pistol into them, then used it as a club, filling his left hand with his bowie.

  He cut, smashed and gashed them, fighting furiously and soon the clean white snow was stained pink with sprayed blood. He spied a small, cave-like opening in the windfall and fought his way toward it. A wolfhound bit his right arm; caused him to drop the pistol. He slit its throat as he stepped between two fallen trees, almost there.

  Another blow to his back: a huge animal, part Great Dane and part St. Bernard, dog claws ripping Michael’s back, teeth tearing the flesh of his left shoulder and he was down. With a sound like a bat hitting a baseball his right leg snapped.

  Berserker! The rage he’d spent his life fighting to control claimed him completely, thrusting him into a realm beyond pain. Agony vanished. Dog bites were irrelevant. All that mattered was killing them--killing them even as they swarmed over him. Adrenaline rushed to every muscle. His eyes blazed gold.

  Roaring like a wounded lion, he exploded from under them, slashing and stabbing, whirling crazily on one leg, the right one flopping uselessly. Snatching a broken branch, he alternately used it as a cane to maintain his balance and as a club to bash in their heads. He spun like a dervish, so ferocious the dogs broke off their assault, confused and afraid.

  The snow around Michael was littered with dead and dying dogs. He seized the opportunity and dove into the opening under the windfall, from which they could only come at him one or two at a time.

  The sounds and smells of their pack mates feeding on his horse drove the dogs nearest him into a frenzy, but instead of turning on him, the starving animals tore into their own dead and wounded. By the time he had a small fire going and had tended his wounds as best he could, they were temporarily sated and content to wait him out.

  Michael’s eyes popped open, for in pretending to sleep he had actually slept. The fire was out and the pale light of early dawn shone weakly through the clouds. His sixth sense had felt danger and reached down into his slumber to warn him. Almost too late. The Dane-Bernard rushed silently upon him, its gaping maw reaching for his throat.

  At the last second, he raised the tip of his spear and braced the butt against the ground. The huge dog jolted onto the spear, impaling itself, sliding along the length of the shaft and breaking it. Michael slashed his bowie across the dog’s neck, dodging its snapping jaws as the beast made one final lunge for his neck. Warm, sticky blood gushed over Michael as the dog collapsed on top of him and rolled into the coals of the fire.

  The stench of singed fur filled Michael’s tree-lined bunker. He wrestled the dog off the coals, then hacked through its spine above its hind legs, allowing the rest of the pack to drag them off and feed.

  Michael drank a small amount of the dog’s blood, careful not to drink too much and make himself sick. Food! Things were looking up. For hours he skinned, butchered and roasted dog meat, resisting the temptation to gorge himself, knowing it had been too long since he had eaten a full meal, he took small bites and chewed them thoroughly.

  That night, the weather turned bad. The wind howled and whipped snow through every open space in his shelter. Even with his fire going and his new dog-fur blanket he almost froze, but the snow took care of his water supply. A good two feet of it blanketed the ground the next morning. Drove the dogs off, too, at least as far as he could see.

  The food and water restored his strength and reduced his fever. But if he was ever going to get back to the Freeholds he had to get mobile. He wasn’t looking forward to the effort, but it was almost time to set his leg. For the remainder of the day he rested, doing only what was needed to keep the fire going and himself fed. He needed all the strength he could muster.

  The next day he made careful preparations, arrangements that were much more thorough than any he had made previously, for he sensed that this would be the last time he would be strong enough to make the attempt. He gathered a couple of straight, stout limbs and trimmed them to length for use as a splint, then whittled a crutch out of a forked branch and set it aside for later use. He stockpiled firewood and built up his fire so he wouldn’t freeze to death if he passed out. He scooped a small hole, just big enough for his feet, under a large heavy log and laid out sinew lashings made from man’s best friend.

  With a grunt, Michael pushed himself up to a sitting position, bent over and loosened his belt, which had been holding together the make-shift splint he’d applied the day he was injured. God, how he’d wished at the time he’d been wearing his paracord bracelet. Pain lashed his nerves and darkness swam at the edge of his vision, forcing him to wait for his eyes to clear before examining his leg: terribly bruised, swollen, puffy, inflamed and extremely tender. Perfect. At least it didn’t stink any worse than the rest of him. He could wait no longer.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he shoved his useless right foot as far as possible into a shallow depression under the fallen tree, hooking the top of that foot against the backside of the log and jamming it in place by bending his left leg and putting the arch of his left foot against his right heel. He laid the two halves of his new splint on either side of his broken right leg and placed the lashings and his belt where they’d be handy. Holding his crutch in both hands,
he set the bottom end into a small hollow he’d carved into the log that now pinned his broken leg and rested the fork against his abdomen.

  He paused a moment and took a deep breath. He looked around to see if the dogs had come back. They hadn’t--and he had just run out of excuses for putting this off any longer. He shoved a small stick between his teeth to keep from biting through his tongue.

  Straightening his left leg, he simultaneously pushed against the crutch. The calf muscles of his lower right leg screamed in tortured protest as they stretched back into their normal position. Michael’s eyeballs bulged, his nostrils flared, veins popped out on his forehead, muscles quivered and his vision dimmed. Do or die! He bit through the stick.

  Broken bones grated past each other, then snicked into place. Trembling, he maintained the tension, left leg shoving against right foot, abdomen braced against crutch as he reached forward, wheezing through gritted teeth, fighting the pain with all his will and probed to make sure that at least the tibia was properly set, before placing his splints and lashing them to his leg.

  Done!

  Gasping, he spit the remainder of the stick out of his mouth and flopped back, sweat-drenched and shaking. He twisted himself around so he could reach the puddle of water and took a long cool drink. The pain was receding, a bit, but he trembled, weak as a kitten. He needed rest, then he’d start planning how to get home. He gripped his bowie, glanced around for dogs and settled down to sleep.

  The following morning bright sunlight glinted off rapidly melting snow. Now, how could he get help? No use building a signal fire. The “help” that showed up probably wouldn’t be friendly.

  Michael knew Ellen would have missed him by now--he was overdue in Provo. But the Mormons didn’t know him. They’d probably just figure he’d had an accident and write him off.

  And Ellen...that had been bothering him. Not just the fight they’d had before he left, but that deep down gut knowledge that something wasn’t right. Some inner sense told him she was missing him almost as much as he longed for her and that feeling of being needed kept coming back to him, haunting him, adding to his sense of urgency.

  He’d just have to get out on his own, he decided. He sighed. When had it ever been any other way?

  His horse was dead and gone to dog-shit and that got him to thinking about the gear in his saddle bags, the rifle in his scabbard and the pistol lying out there underneath the melting snow.

  By the end of the day he had crafted a new spear, which he used as a walking staff, gathered up his gear and taken inventory. Walking through downed timber with a splinted leg and a crutch took a bit of getting used to, but he was so glad to be up and around, standing and moving in the fresh sweet air outside his tiny bunker, that the pain was unimportant.

  Some dog had chewed on the wooden grips of his pistol, but he could clean it up, use a little dog fat for oil and make it serviceable. Michael’s rifle was in better condition, though the scabbard had been shredded. His saddle bags had been ripped to pieces, their contents scattered, but he found several key items: ammunition for both guns, his slingshot, a bag of marbles, the rain fly from his tent, a packet of waterproof matches to replenish the package he always carried in his pocket, some 36# tarred mariners line, an old Denver Broncos ball cap, a pair of plastic aviator-style sunglasses and half a sleeping bag.

  Luxury!

  Tomorrow, he decided, he would hunt and prepare some food, rig the rain fly as a knapsack; and get ready to head down the mountain.

  *

  The next day dawned bright and mostly clear, with a few wispy white cirrus clouds, floating high in the pale blue sky. Stirring around the remains of his horse, using a shoulder blade to shovel away the snow, Michael found a few more of his precious belongings, including a paracord bracelet and one of Jim’s pipe grenades.

  He was thinking about food when a small rustling sound caught his attention. A fat snowshoe hare peeked out from beneath a tangle of dead limbs. Windfalls make great shelter for small game. The hare took a couple of quick hops, then sat down and started scratching behind his ear with one of his huge hind legs.

  Easing his slingshot and a marble from his pocket, Michael fitted the marble into the pouch, drew back smoothly and released. The hare flopped over, its hind legs kicking spastically and Michael had made an early start laying in a food supply. By day’s end he’d bagged four more rabbits.

  He ate half a rabbit for dinner and roasted the others. He’d made a backpack out of horse ribs and his rain fly and a holster for his .357 out of dog fur. He’d been hobbling around all day and even though he was getting the hang of it he was exhausted and his leg throbbed like a toothache from hell. The bright side was the movement had improved his circulation, allowing some of the swelling in his leg to go down.

  His final chore for the night was to jam a shield he fashioned out of branches into the doorway of his bunker. He desperately needed a good night’s sleep and he wasn’t going to ruin it by worrying about those dogs coming back and killing him while he slept. He wrapped what was left of his sleeping bag around his legs and feet, lay back and dropped off into a deep, sound slumber.

  Two days later, he was midway down the valley nearing another in a series of beaver ponds when the pain in his leg convinced him to call it a day. Sweaty and shaking with effort, he set up camp next to an enormous boulder in a small grove of aspen. He intended to flop down and rest, but the lure of a nearby beaver pond was too strong. The ice was mostly off, the water crystal clear. He could see at least a dozen trout and even briefly glimpsed some beaver near their lodge before the whack of a beaver’s tail slapping water warned them of his presence and sent them scurrying for cover.

  A few ducks and a pair of geese were on the far side of the pond eyeing him nervously. It was that time of spring when they would be nesting and though the thought of fresh eggs was tempting, he was too tired to locate their well-hidden nests. Besides, trout would make a refreshing change from rabbit.

  Limping back to the aspen grove, he uprooted an eight foot long sapling and trimmed it into a barbed fishing spear. Once back at the pond he circled around to where the stream entered it and struggled through the willows to a sandbar that jutted out into the water. With patience and a quick arm, he speared two cutthroat trout for dinner. Some tender young dandelion greens, wild onion and dried rosehips would add flavor and vitamin C.

  The snow had melted off the sandbar and the sand was dry and warm. He took off as much of his clothing as he could manage without disturbing his splint and washed them and himself, spreading clothes and self out on the sand to dry. The stink relief was incredible. He lay there absorbing the warmth of the sun, wishing Ellen was enjoying this with him.

  His thoughts drifted to the last time he’d seen her and the angry words they’d exchanged. He wished he’d stayed a little longer and tried to reason, but instead he’d gone ballistic and stomped out.

  Her angry words came back to him. “Go on then!” she’d yelled. “Run off into your precious mountains. You’d rather be there than here with me and the children anyhow!”

  The truth of her accusation cut deeply. Not that he liked being away from her and the children, but that he enjoyed being alone in the woods. It was a part of his heritage from his Blackfoot grandfather and he knew he wouldn’t be the man she loved without that heritage to guide him. He was simply doing his duty as he saw it. She would’ve understood that once she calmed down. Or at least it made him feel better to think so. Right now, though, not even the heat of the sun penetrating his skin and relaxing his muscles would feel as good as a hug from her.

  Soon, shadows were stretching out over the valley and evening’s chill forced him back to his camp where he steamed the trout in his campfire coals. Suddenly, he stiffened and straightened up, cupping his hands around his ears so he could hear better. Faintly, on the wind, it came to him again--a distant howling that froze him in place and sent goose bumps racing up and down his arms. That was no pack of harmless coyotes yi
pping at the moon rising over the mountains to the east, nor was it wolves gathering to hunt. Those he would have welcomed. They seldom bothered men. But DOGS!

  From the sound they were up-valley and upwind of him; but he couldn’t afford to deceive himself. If they were on his trail he was in big trouble again. And from the baying, they were on something’s trail.

  He thought of the distance he had come from his log-fall bunker, of the downed trees he had labored across, of hopping precariously from boulder to boulder and wading in small streams to hide his scent. He thought of the melting snow that might just have washed his scent away and of the glaring scent trail he had left between the beaver pond and his camp. He thought most of all of how rapidly they could dash over the ground he had struggled so painfully over the past two days and of how they could be upon him within minutes if they were on his trail.

  His jaws clenched unconsciously and his hands balled into fists. He was really beginning to dislike dogs and that came hard, having been a dog lover all his life.

  He damped the fire and covered the coals. The hot coals would remain alive throughout the night, ready to be uncovered and rekindled instantly should the need arise, but he didn’t want a flickering flame drawing the dogs from afar. He ate his fish as he sat with his back to the boulder, eyes scanning between the trees, ears tuned to the baying that drew steadily closer.

  He checked and rechecked his weapons, wondering if he had enough ammo to kill them all and if he would get a chance to reload. His .357 held six 158 grain hollow-point bullets and he had found four of his speed loads. The rifle was a .270 bolt action Remington, clip fed, with eight rounds per magazine and two extras. He was second-guessing leaving behind his AR 15 and its thirty round clips.