Sackett alerted me that something was wrong before I saw or heard them. Without thinking, I nocked an arrow.
“What is it, Sackett?”
Sackett pointed his nose toward the other side of the meadow. I looked, and there they were, a dog pack. Shit.
I tried to count them and got to twenty before it occurred to me that the dogs would be on us before we could find cover.
So much for being confident and sure of myself. I’d fucked up again. As I watched the dogs approach, I figured I ought to kiss my ass goodbye, as this would be the last chance I might have. What chance do one dog and a boy have against a pack of big hungry dogs?
I slipped a loop of rope over Sackett’s head and tied the other end around my waist. I thought he’d be safer close to me. I put the bow away and loaded the rifle. The dogs were almost three hundred yards away. They had our scent and were coming our way.
I raised the rifle to my shoulder and sighted on a big German shepherd, the lead dog. I didn’t want to shoot, but I told myself these dogs were no longer pets. They were wild animals that wanted to eat us.
I fired and the shepherd collapsed. I levered the chamber open and stuffed another big old cartridge into the rifle.
This time I fired at a big black lab, as lean as I’d ever seen. I missed.
Sackett growled and surged against the rope, causing me to drop the cartridge I was trying to load.
“Calm down, Sackett,” I pleaded.
I thought we should run, but the dogs would catch us before we made it to the woods. The only thing to do was stand and fight.
The dogs were now within a hundred feet and coming strong. I fired again, this time hitting two of them. One fell and didn’t move. The other yelped and limped away. He was done for the day.
The dogs slowed and began to circle us. I fired again, and another dog fell, this one a full-size poodle. Then I shot another and another, but the dog pack was determined and kept circling.
All I could do was kill as many as I could. For once I wasn’t worried about the sound of gunfire. I was sort of hoping somebody might hear it and come lend a hand.
Ten minutes later, the dogs were creeping closer. I'd killed or wounded ten of them, but the remaining dogs seemed determined to kill us. I had thought the gunfire would scare them away. No such luck.
King had warned me about the possibility of encountering dog packs. He said dogs would be hard to drive away because they were used to the sound of gunfire and only the strongest and most determined dogs would survive to join the dog packs.
He was right. All of the dogs in this pack were as big or bigger than Sackett, if not as heavy. There wasn’t a lap dog among them.
I fired again and watched another big mutt collapse.
I thought about making a fire but there was nothing here in the grass that would burn. The dogs just kept creeping closer. Then they charged.
I fired the rifle, dropped it and pulled my belt pistol. I killed five dogs with six shots. There was no time to reload, so I dropped the pistol and cut Sackett loose. He jumped a mutt that came close and the fight was on. I kept my hunting knife in my left hand and pulled the little pistol from my pocket with my right. Sackett and the other dog were in a furious fight, with loud growls alternating with bloody fangs. There was nothing I could do to help Sackett. They were moving too fast for me to get a shot at the other dog.
But I had problems of my own. Two dogs approached me. They were less than twenty feet away. I shot them both through the center of their skulls. One collapsed and the other sat down and just stared at me, an empty look on his face.
I grinned just before another dog jumped on me from behind and smacked my face into the grass. My little pistol went flying. I stabbed behind me with my hunting knife and heard the dog yelp. I managed to roll over and the dog lunged at me again. I moved my right arm in front of my face and the dog grabbed it in his jaws. I felt his teeth jab into my arm as I stabbed him in the throat with my knife. It took a dozen stabs before I was able to heave the dog off of me.
As I stood, I saw Sackett standing over the body of the dog he had been fighting and growling at two other dogs.
My arm was bloody and I had trouble closing my right hand. There were three dogs facing me. I figured these were the hanger’s on, the dogs that just weren’t as fierce as the rest. I yelled and waved my knife and they slunk back a couple of feet.
I looked around for my little pistol, but didn’t see it. The rifle was there, so I squatted and picked it up. The dogs approached closer. As I stood the dogs stopped their advance. I waved the rifle at them and they backed up a bit more. I clamped the rifle to my chest with my bad arm, and fished a cartridge out of my left pants pocket.
I loaded the rifle and raised it to my shoulder. My right hand hurt so badly that I almost couldn’t squeeze the trigger. I managed and the gun boomed, one dog fell. The others fled.
Sackett chased after them.
“Sackett,” I yelled. “No. Come back.”
I watched as he ran out of sight. I gathered up my pistols and reloaded them. Then I found my knife and put it back in its sheathe. My bow and arrows were still on my back. After loading the rifle, I examined my bow and arrows, which had taken the brunt of the dog attack. One tip of the bow was broken. I could see the teeth marks from the dog’s bite. Three of my arrows were ruined and there was a hole torn in my pack.
All in all, I’d been lucky. I’d only been bitten on my right forearm and hand. I ripped a tee shirt into strips and bandaged it as best I could.
While keeping watch for other dogs, and for Sackett to return, I searched for some things that had fallen out of the tear in my pack. I found most of them, and repacked the pack so nothing else was likely to fall out.
Then I went looking for Sackett.
Three hours later I found him. Well, to be accurate, Sackett found me. He had a couple of bites but he was in better shape than I was.
We looked for a defensible campsite and found one just before dark. It was a nice spot against a rock outcrop. I built a ring of fires around the part of our camp that didn’t butt up against the rocks, and fell sound asleep. It was a smoky night’s sleep but me and Sackett both felt better in the morning. My arm and hand still hurt, but not as much.
I washed my and Sackett’s wounds in water boiled over the fire, applied some polysporin cream, and re-bandaged my hand and arm.
For the next three days we looked for a better campsite. On the eve of the third day, we found a cave not far from a stream. There were signs of old fires at the mouth of the cave.
I made us a fire and we ate a rabbit Sackett had caught that afternoon. It was warm enough that I didn’t think there were any bears in the cave, but I made sure the old rifle was loaded anyway.
In the morning we’d use a torch to check out the cave and I’d get started on making another bow and some more arrows. Even if I wanted to use the rifle to hunt, I didn’t have enough cartridges. I needed a bow. Until then, deadfalls and field mice would have to do. I was getting tired of making bows and arrows. I wondered if the Indians had the same problem? I doubted it.
The next morning, I made a torch and me and Sackett explored the cave. The irregular opening wasn’t huge, maybe six-feet-tall and five-feet-wide, but the cave opened up once we were inside. I held the torch high and saw figures painted on the walls. I was no expert, but they looked Indian to me. Past the first room, which was at least twenty feet wide with a ceiling everywhere much taller than me, we found a series of smaller rooms that terminated in a tiny crawlspace. I stopped there. I wasn’t gonna crawl into that space with a sputtering torch.
Over the next few days I explored the cave and found several more rooms, but I never entered the crawlspace. Sackett stayed mostly in the big room or outside. I guess he was claustrophobic. Who woulda guessed?
I saw no sign that modern people had ever visited this cave. There was no trash, no empty soda cans, no plastic water bottles, nothing.
I found
two arrowheads in the front of the cave, and a couple of old beaded baskets in one of the back rooms. I left the baskets where they were. They were too old to be of use. But I used the arrowheads on two new arrows. They were better than anything I could make.
I found a hickory tree the right diameter and with as straight a grain as I could find. Finding the right tree took four whole days. It was about six inches in diameter and grew straight and tall. I chopped it down and cut the trunk to length. This time I was going to make a bow longer than I was tall. I calculated that would cut down on string pinch on my fingers when I drew the bow. I also thought my previous bows had been much too short. Maybe that was why they broke so easily?
I couldn’t quite carry the hickory trunk over my shoulder, so I dragged it back to camp.
This time I felt like I knew what I was doing. I split the hickory trunk into six of the straightest grained and most even pieces of hickory I’d ever seen. There wasn’t a single knot in any of the pieces. I smiled. This was a treasure greater than any I could have hoped for.
I carefully peeled the bark from each piece, being careful not to nick the wood fibers underneath. The outside of the stave would be the back of my bow. I’d learned that if I nicked the fibers, the bow would eventually break, probably when I least wanted it to.
Once the bark was removed, I used a hand axe and my knife to shape the belly and sides of the bow. I never touched the back. It was just as it came off of the tree, minus the bark.
I worked on four bows at the same time. They looked like the longbows on the wall in the sporting goods store before they stopped selling anything but compound bows. When I first started making bows, I thought the limbs had to be thin and flat. Thin limbs broke too easily. My best bows so far had more D-shaped limbs, so that’s what I made now.
I spent several weeks by the fire shaping the bows and making new arrows. I’d gradually learned that arrows that were a few inches longer than my draw length shot best for me, so I made my new arrows six inches longer than I needed. It made the arrows slightly heavier and they hit harder.
I’d traded for a cigar box full of old broadheads from one of Lonnie’s neighbors. These I heated over the fire to soften the glue and let me remove the threaded inserts. Then I fitted the broadheads to my new arrows. They took and held a razor edge pretty well. Better than any other arrow points I had, except the two Indian arrowheads, which were pretty sharp too.
I spent a long time getting the bows to bend with no kinks. When I was done, I made permanent strings for each bow from some thin linen string, which I looped over and over until they were the right thickness. I wrapped thread around the strings for six inches where the arrow nocked, and then separated the ends on the string and wrapped more thread around them to form the loops.
The man I got the arrowheads from taught me to do this and gave me the string and heavy green thread. He said this was a Flemish style bowstring and would serve me well.
Once the bows were completed, I rubbed them all over with warm candle wax so they would repel water. I did all of my arrow shafts the same way.
I set the bows high in the entrance of the cave to dry for two weeks before I shot one. I’d found, by accident, that when I dried the bows for a while, they didn’t take nearly as much set as they did if I used them green.
Finally, I was ready. I chose one of the bows and a half-dozen arrows. I drew the bow and released the arrow. The arrow flew smoothly to the target and the bow felt sweet in my hand. All four bows shot beautifully, no string pinch, little shock on my hand, and almost no noise.
The bows were ready for the last step. I took a small piece of fine grit sandpaper and smoothed the backs of the bows, each in turn. Then I used a pair of scissors to cut strips of fiberglass cloth to fit the backs of each bow.
Then, using a crap-ton of epoxy packages liberated from an empty store, I glued the fiberglass strips in place. Once the epoxy was dry, I smoothed everything with my knife and sandpaper.
I waited a couple more days before trying one of the bows again. I grunted as I drew the bow. The fiberglass backing had added a few pounds of draw weight. When I released the arrow, I fell in love. This was the best bow I’d ever shot and the fiberglass backing should keep it from breaking, at least at my draw length.
Each of the bows was just as good, if not better than the first. The arrows flew faster and farther than from any of my previous bows. I was happy even if Sackett seemed a little bored lately.
I had a few other things to make to implement my plan to eliminate Tolliver and the other man. I decided to only get Tolliver and the other man who had raped and killed my sisters. There would be time enough to do that later though. Right now I was going hunting with one of my new bows.
Chapter 25
After thinking for a few weeks, I decided I needed a few things before I went after Tolliver. So me and Sackett headed for a town close to the northern border of the national forest. I wanted a few man-made things and I wasn’t gonna find them in the wild woods.
Our trip through the forest was uneventful except for the waterfall we found. It was beautiful. I’d have liked to spend a few days there, but there were things to do. I thought about abandoning my revenge, and I almost convinced myself I should. But, in the end, I couldn’t. I kept thinking about how my mom and sisters died.
Before the lights went out, I’d have been happy to disavow responsibility and just let the police handle it. That was what we were supposed to do. But that was then, this was now. Now, each man now must find his own code and live by it. There was no one to tell a man what to do. And I thought of myself as a man in a boy’s body. Even if that might not be completely true, I knew I’d matured a heck of a lot since the lights went out.
What was my code, then? It took me a while to put into words what I’d been thinking for a long time now. First, to live and let live, unless harm is brought upon me or mine. I remembered a phrase from the Bible, a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye. That also meant a life for a life. By my reckoning, Tolliver and the other man owed me their lives for what they had done to my family, and to King, whose name I now wore.
Second, to try to help good people when and where I could.
That was it. That was my code. Shit, that’s about all I could remember anyway. Little stuff like not drinking or smoking would have to take care of itself. Besides, as best I could tell, the folks in the towns had drunk almost every vestige of alcoholic beverage left, and smoked all the cigarettes and cigars too. Every time I met anyone now, the first question out of their mouths was likely to be, you got any booze or smokes, Boy?
I did know where there were a few bottles of whiskey hidden in the dead man’s trailer, but I wasn’t gonna tell anyone.
I had a shit-load of deer jerky all rolled up in a tanned deer hide. That would be my trade goods if I had trouble scrounging what I needed in town. When we entered the town, my bow and arrows were tied to my pack, but the big old rifle was in my hands, ready for a quick shot if needed.
I walked nearly half a mile into town before I met anyone.
“Hey Kid. Where did you come from?”
I looked the boy over. He was a year or two older than me and carried a brace of rabbits in one hand and a .22 rifle in another. “From that way,” I pointed with my chin.
“Shit, there’s just woods that way.”
“Yeah.”
“Man, that’s a wowser.”
Wowser? Where was this kid from? “What’s a wowser?” I asked.
“Oh, just one of the words that me and my brothers make up. We’re kinda developing our own language.”
“I like that.” I smiled, wondering how many English teachers were rolling around in their graves right now.
“What’s your name?” The boy asked.
“Trevor, Trevor Kingcade.”
“Mine’s Tom Evans.”
We shook hands. Tom’s smile was contagious. I found myself smiling back at him.
“Hey, you want to go fis
hing?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Let me run these rabbits back to our house and grab a couple of poles. I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes. Nice dog, by the way.”
Tom ran off heading deeper into town. I looked around for a hiding place. I didn’t think Tom was up to anything, but it’s best to be cautious. Me and Sackett found a hidden spot and waited.
Sure enough, in about ten minutes, Tom came running back carrying two fishing poles, and his .22 rifle. I didn’t think anything about that though. Few people I met lately went anywhere without a weapon of some sort.
Soon me and Tom were sitting on a creek bank watching two little red and white bobbers floating in the creek. The fish didn’t seem to be biting, but I didn’t care. It was nice to just sit and yak with someone my own age.
Tom asked me how things had been for me since the lights went out. For some reason, I told him. I told him everything, even about my sisters and my mom. Tom sat quietly and just listened.
“Trevor, that’s rough, just really rough.”
“Just the way life breaks, Tom. No more no less. How’s it been for you?”
I listened carefully, as polite as a non-biting fish.
Tom’s story had its rough spots. His aunt and uncle across town were murdered, but mostly he had watched people die from starvation.
“It’s amazing how people changed,” Tom said. “It’s like we were transported to an alien zombie planet over the course of just a week or two.”
“I noticed,” I nodded.
“Folks would kill you for your food, people who I didn’t think were mean at all.”
“How did you and your family survive?”
“My dad’s a good hunter and he taught all of us boys. I’m the youngest of six boys, no sisters though.”
“Didn’t game and fish get scarce?”
EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone Page 19